Mummy has always let it be known to the family that she wanted her ashes to be sprinkled from the top of her beloved Craig Bheag mountains in her hometown village of Kingussie, Iverness-shire, Scotland!! We shall all journey to the Highlands to fulfill this wish... In the meantime, however, there was the important matter of her temporary home... Something fitting for our beloved Joan/Mummy/Nyonya/Auntie Joan! For all who know her, conventional was the farthest away from who she was! To be called "normal" was an insult!!! So when my father, Kyla and I walked upstairs to the showroom of urns at James Reid that sad Saturday afternoon, absolutely NOTHING of the urns struck our fancy in the least!! They were all too... Well, conventional... normal!! That's not who she was, who she is or who she will ever be!! So that meant Kyla and I had to put our Thinking Caps on... We started prowling around the house, looking for inspiration from vessels that came from the McGrath artistic collection already established. "No, too big... No, too small... We felt like Goldilocks hunting for the "just right".... Just like my mother many, many years house hunting and not knowing what she wanted until she actually saw it, we just felt that it would come to us. (Let's not dwell on the rather black humour Monty Pythonesque feelings of needing to get the dimensions correct...). Suddenly, as my eyes dropped to the ground level garden scene that was set up by the dining room window, I let out a triumphant "AHA!!!". There before my very eyes (but invisible to me all these years) were two identical, cubical yet artistic pottery containers! Rich earthy tones made this scream out "perfection"! Now, it took a mathematical calculation to confirm the adequacy of our discovery ( I told you this had a touch of Monty Python...). The irony of this is not lost on us - my mother was NOT a mathematical soul at all!! Dimensions confirmed, a new problem faced us-- no lid!!! No worries, we see life with our mother's unconventional eyes... off Kyla and I went to Michaels craft store to poke around and see if we could fashion a lid!! The giggles actually erupted in this otherwise very somber time as we went up one aisle and down another, hunting for inspirational lids. We found a wooden plaque that might have worked, we found a picture frame that would have suited, but when we hit the cork aisle, we knew we were on to something!! Being the Scot that I am, I needed to check Home Depot and Staples for better bargains (!), so off we went across the parking lot, only to return later to our original find. Great consultations went on with a store helper as to which adhesive would be best for gluing pottery to cork (never once revealing the true nature of the container though!!). Soon we were on our way, smiling and looking up to the sky, knowing that Mummy was delighting in the Adventure we were all having together... Several trips back to James Reid, and soon we were ready with our urns that would be fitting enough for Mummy. We each had some time alone, and amongst the tears, it was also fitting to have a wee smile ... unique and vibrant - unconventional to the end!!