Couple furious at ‘undignified’ return of ashes

A PRESTONDALE resident says that she has been traumatised by the experience of receiving a close friend’s remains in a plastic bag. This morning, Carla Borges said she received the ashes of a friend in a plastic bag from a Durban funeral service.

Carla and Cristina Borges made arrangements on Thursday, 23 March, last week to have a close friend receive a private cremation with a Phoenix funeral service.

They said the funeral service initially told them, that the friend’s remains would be returned to them by Friday afternoon or Saturday at the latest. “I spoke to the funeral service on Friday, and I was told by them that I would only be given her ashes on Saturday,” Carla said.

However when Saturday arrived, Carla said, she was then told her friend’s remains would be returned on Monday. The couple only received the ashes Tuesday morning.

The 44 year-old said that when her friend’s ashes were finally delivered to her in the morning, she was shocked to find that it was given to her in a plastic shopping bag, and not in a cloth as she had asked for. The Prestondale resident went on to say that as she went into her home with the ashes, a trail was left on the ground as the remains fell to the floor from a hole in the shopping bag. “The whole experience has been shocking and traumatic, and it has left me unsure whether the ashes I was given are really my friend,” an emotional Borges told the Northglen News.

Carla and Cristina said that arrangements had been made with the funeral service  for their friend’s ashes to be placed in a cloth that would then be placed inside a clear plastic bag. “When my wife’s mother was cremated, we received her ashes in an urn inside a clear plastic bag. We also had our pets cremated and they were treated with more care than my friend was shown,” cried Carla.

Our attempts to obtain a comment from the funeral service in question, were unsuccessful.