Mortician Offers Unhinged Advice To A Daughter Asking What To Do With Her Abusive Dad’s Cremated Remains
Who knew there were so many options to give an abusive parent the send off they deserve?
Josep Suria | Shutterstock A woman who is not quite grieving the loss of her father went on TikTok with an unusual question — what should she do with her abusive father's ashes? She got lots of suggestions, but the downright unhinged advice that came from a mortician might just take the cake.
A mortician offered unhinged advice to a daughter asking what to do with her abusive dad's cremated remains.
In 2022, Kerri Cobb was doing her bi-yearly internet search on her estranged father, making sure he was being the "very best parolee" that he could be. Unexpectedly, she stumbled upon his obituary instead.
"I perked up immediately," she admitted, then noticed that they were planning to hold a celebration of life in his honor, something she was quick to shut down. She drove three-and-a-half hours to pick up his remains from his great aunt as next of kin but hasn't known what to do with his ashes since.
“He's just been taking up refuge in my garage. He just kind of, like, migrates from corner to corner. Whenever my husband needs the space, we just move him,” Cobb explained, showing off her father's remains currently in a plastic bag. Yet, she's looking for a more permanent solution.
“I'm not gonna memorialize him. I'm not putting him in an urn. I'm not gonna sprinkle him on some [expletive] field somewhere. He's already burned. I just don't want him in my house,” she said. Cobb then asked for advice from other abused children on what they did or would do in her place.
“Find a porta potty and dump him. Let others crap on him,” one TikTok user suggested. "Mix him into some concrete. Make a brick out of said concrete and drop him in a body of water where he can reside for the rest of time," another commenter wrote.
A mortician suggested that Cobb mix her father’s ashes into kitty litter or mail him to a random address to get him off her hands.
Lauren, known as @laurenthemortician online, responded to Cobb's TikTok in a morbidly hilarious video of her own. “Do you have a neglectful Dad? Did he ghost you in life, and now you're stuck with his ashes in death? Are you tired of him taking up space just like he did in your childhood? Well, worry no more!” she joked.
“I'm Lauren the mortician, and I'm here to offer you creative, practical, and slightly unhinged solutions for what to do with those pesky, parental remains.”
Lauren first suggested Cobb mix her father’s ashes in cat litter. “If he wasn't exactly father of the year, this seems like a fitting way for him to be repurposed," she said. "Every time the cat kicks him around, you can just tell yourself, ‘Now he finally understands what it's like to clean up after someone else."
The second option she offered was stuffing the ashes into an envelope and shipping them to a random address for someone else to deal with. “Slap on a mysterious note that just says to take care of them, it's your turn now," she advised. "Maybe he'll find a new family who actually wants him."
Lauren also suggested dumping the ashes into the ocean so could "finally reside in the void that matches his soul" and "get to spend eternity with bottom feeders." Or, if none of these options are appealing, she offered to take Cobb's father's remains off her hands herself.
“I'll make sure that he really rests in peace," she said. "I am collecting a shelf of deadbeat parents. I already have one!"
Children of abusive parents often experience a complicated grieving process when those parents die.
In a follow-up video, Cobb shared that when she was just 7 years old, she was sexually abused by her father while her mother did nothing to intervene. Although some viewers were appalled by the way Lauren and Cobb spoke about her father’s remains, she has the right to grieve however she sees fit.
While some people may have just tossed the ashes out without a second thought, everyone’s healing journey looks different. Some feel sadness for the closure they never got. Others feel anger or relief. Some, like Cobb, cope with dark humor.
None of these feelings are right or wrong, and no one has the right to determine how an abused person behaves after the death of their abuser.
Megan Quinn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on justice in the workplace, personal relationships, parenting debates, and the human experience.