A death in the family can bring up a lot of issues.

In this story, the deceased wanted his remains to stay with the family.

But everyone interpreted that differently.

Let’s see what happened…

AITA for secretly replacing my late brother’s ashes with fireplace ash so I could keep the real ones?

My brother passed away two years ago.

We were incredibly close, he basically raised me after our parents died.

He had always said he didn’t want to be buried or scattered; he wanted to “stay with the people he loved.”

Heartbreaking but heartwarming at once. Hopefully his wishes are honored.

When he passed, the family decided to scatter his ashes at our childhood home’s lake. I was devastated.

Of course.

I wanted to keep a small urn, but my older cousin (who organized the memorial) said that was “morbid and selfish” and insisted all the ashes be scattered together.

Everyone else went along with it.

Here’s where it gets weird.

Already kind of weird, but OK, what next?

I work at a lab, and I quietly took a small portion of his ashes home before the official scattering.

To avoid suspicion, I replaced what I took with a near-identical weight of gray fireplace ash.

No one noticed.

Why would they?

I now have a tiny urn in my apartment, and I feel closer to him because of it.

I told my best friend recently, and she was horrified.

She said it was deceptive, disrespectful to the rest of the family, and possibly even “spiritually selfish.”

Hm, tough call.

I hadn’t thought of it like that. I never meant to hurt anyone, it just felt like my only way to keep a piece of him with me.

So… AITA for secretly replacing some of my brother’s ashes before the family scattered them?

This situation is definitely morally gray.

Let’s see what the comments think.

This person says, NTA, if you had the ashes why didn’t you keep them?

This person says OP is the only one who listened.

Another person says the fam is disrespectful.

Another user is like, you shoulda been in charge?!

Someone else says this best friendship is questionable.

Ashes to ashes, fuss to fuss.

This is a wild one for sure.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.