TIFU: Zip-tie on a Hefty Bag

Obligatory: it wasn't actually me, it was my mother. And it wasn't today, it was several years ago. But I digress. I was reminded of this by a post in r/foundpaper of a note from a mother to her children to "throw her ashes anywhere"

When we were growing up, my dad always swore to his parents that when they died he would put them in a Hefty bag and toss them on the freeway. This was a family joke, because my dad loved his parents dearly and they loved him.

My grandmother passed away first from complications due to a lifetime of smoking, and within two years, my grandfather followed from heartbreak. They had been married over 50 years.

My father was devastated, and it took a lot of time for him to process that his parents were gone. He grieved heavily, we all struggled with it. Finally after several years, he was ready to say goodbye to both his parents.

My mother had got them some very nice matching mahogany boxes for their ashes to be kept in while they were at home. When the time came to "bury" them however, my mom remembered my dad's promise.

So when the day came, my mom emptied them out so we could go to the beach, putting them in a garbage bag that she then zip-tied because she didn't want them to fall out on the boat ride to the location we had all decided on.

We got to the beach, hiked over to the idyllic spot we had decided upon, and all had a good cry. We said a few words, and my dad took off his shoes and rolled up his pants to wade in to say his final goodbye.

When he tried to untie the garbage bag and dump them in the ocean, he didn't notice the zip-tie.

So my poor father is standing in the water up to his knees, holding an upended hefty bag full of the ashes of his parents- crying and laughing at the same time, cursing my mother for closing the thing the way she did, while she argues from the beach that she just wanted to ensure they didn't come out. Finally my dad takes out his utility knife to free his parents, and they are taken by the wind and the waves. We all sit together in the sand crying and hugging, and two seals come by to pop their heads up, that were swear to this day were our grandparents coming to say goodbye.

Tl;dr: my mother zip-tied my grandparents ashes into a hefty bag, unnecessarily elongating their funeral.