Source: Reddit
My son died just over a year ago when he was 7 and it’s been hard on everyone in the family, obvs. MIL was pretty close with him, she babysat him for me while I worked, until he died.. I felt more comfortable leaving him with her as she was a nurse (he was born at 24weeks and had cerebral palsy & was generally medically fragile). MIL and I aren’t too close, at first she didn’t like me but seemed to warm up once SO and I had kids. She still babysits for us when needed, which is less often these days.
We had my son cremated. When he was cremated my MIL suggested that we get a few smaller urns and split up the ashes so we can all have an urn (us, ILs and my parents). Obviously that did NOT go down well with me and I said no. She seemed to admit it was a bad idea and didn’t mention it again. For mothers day this year we planned on getting MIL and my Mom a necklace with some of his ashes in, which she knew about as she’d been asking for one. We were up for it (I fancied one myself so was going to get us all one) but with COVID and everything, we never got around to doing it, which she seemed pretty irritated by at the time but never mentioned it again and thanked us for the other gift we sent her.
A few days ago she babysat my daughter at my house. Today I was cleaning and while I was cleaning the shelf that we have for our son for some of his things (pictures, trophies from baseball, ornaments etc), I noticed his urn was gone. Naturally I freaked out, asked my daughter if she’d moved it even though she can’t reach. It has NEVER Been moved in the time it’s been there. SO also had no clue & was as worried as me. MIL is the only other person that has been in the house so I called her.
She owned up to it right away and explained she took them so she can ‘spend some time with him’!??? and get the ashes sent off for her gift because she was disheartened that I didn’t get it sorted in time for MD. She hid the urn in her bag so I wouldn’t notice, and took it home. I told her she was completely out of order and demanded she bring the ashes back as I did not give her permission to STEAL HIS ASHES from his house and his family, but she said as his Grandma she has every right to ‘have him for a while’. F**k. that. Even if she’d asked I probably would have said no but I’m in complete shock that she would just TAKE him like that?!?
She says she will bring his urn back tomorrow and told me not to be angry about it because what’s done is done but every time I think about it I get so angry.
