Parishioners Hold Interment For ‘Ashes Of The Unknown’

ORLEANS – On a windy and wet morning this past August, a non-discript green plastic bag lingered in the corner of the parking lot at the Church of the Holy Spirit on Monument Road. Inside it, a small casket-shaped box held what appeared to be ashes.

 “It was upsetting to me,” said the Rev. Patrick Ward, the church’s rector. 

 Ward said his husband, Roger, discovered the ashes upon going outside to protect a tent in the parking lot from being blown over. Unsure of what to do, they placed the box temporarily in the church’s memorial garden while they awaited further instruction from Orleans police. 

 Police suggested that Ward bring the ashes to Nickerson Funeral Home for inspection.

 “Sometimes there’s a medallion or an identifier, the possibility of something in there that could give a clue as to the crematorium or something,” he said.

 Staff at the funeral home told Ward that it did not appear to be a complete set of ashes, or that they could possibly be those of a young child. Ward also reached out to a local yoga group that had used the church property before the ashes were discovered, but no one claimed them.

 So it remains a mystery as to who the ashes belong to and who left them behind. But Ward said he believes they were left by someone in a state of crisis.

 “I felt as if we were being entrusted with it, and they didn’t know what else to do,” he said.

 The ashes were brought inside the church and placed in a secure place while Ward considered what to do with them. Eventually, it was decided that the “ashes of the unknown” would be interred in the memorial garden on Nov. 1, All Saints Day.

 At the conclusion of last Sunday’s service, parishioners gathered in the memorial garden, where the ashes were interred in the ground. Under the church’s newly-constructed pergola, Ward led a short service, where the names of others memorialized in the garden were read. Ward also conducted a censing of the garden using a thurible, filling the air with incense. 

 “We commend to almighty God this child of God,” he said. “And we commit their remains to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless them and keep them.”

 Ward said All Saints Day in many ways was a fitting occasion for holding the interment. The day, he explained, was established because there are too few calendar days on which to honor all the named saints.

 “There’s this sense of [honoring] the anonymous as well as the famous, St. Francis of Assisi, but also your Aunt Mary,” he said. “So I thought it was a perfect day to commit this unknown person to God’s care.”

 Sunday’s ceremony also was in keeping with the Christian belief that all people are children of God, and as such are entitled to be put to rest with dignity.

 “We don’t know what the faith background of this person was,” he said. “But our belief as Christians is that God knows who this person was, and God loves that person.”

 Ward also took a moment Sunday to recognize the new pergola, which was built and donated by Russ Karber of Brewster to compliment the memorial garden. He said he hopes members of the public will use the pergola and garden to “find respite and renewal.”