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Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more
A woman’s extraordinary story about her father’s ashes is going viral on TikTok.
Monica Long, a single mother to three boys aged 14, three, and two, began by recalling that she was cleaning dirt off her children’s faces when she made the discovery.
“The boys got Paw Paw,” she said, referring to her two toddlers. “They got him and they dumped him out all over my carpet. And I didn’t realize it was Paw Paw. And I vacuumed him up.”
Long held up an empty, cross-shaped container in the video with the label Paw Paw on it.
“They may have eaten some of him too,” she continued in her video, which has more than 2 million views. “Because [my son] had the cap [of the container] in his mouth.”
Long managed to find humor in the situation, as she later posted another video of her two toddlers standing next to the vacuum, which had their grandfather’s ashes in it. The device also had a new label on it: “PawPaw.”
“Quit messing with, PawPaw!” she told her children as they held the vacuum. “He’s been through too much.”
Speaking to People magazine, Long shared that the viral incident took place at her house in Colorado, as she was preparing for her youngest child’s birthday party. She also noted that all three of her children are on the autism spectrum.
“Our house is wild. You never know what one day to the next is going to be like. My younger two are toddlers, so they’re just getting into everything these days,” she explained.
She added that when she was in the bathroom, she discovered that after “four minutes,” there was “stuff all over” her toddlers and the floor.
“I was like, ‘Where did this dirt come from?’ I grabbed the vacuum and vacuumed it up and continued about my day,” Long said.
However, days later, she saw that the container holding the ashes was empty, realizing that her children “climbed their way up” to one of the shelves and got a hold of it. At that point, she discovered that she’d previously vacuumed up the ashes and wasn’t sure if she should “laugh or cry” about it.
“The littlest one, he figured out how to open bottles by biting and unscrewing them. So that’s why they had white dust on their lips,” she said. “And I just dusted and cleaned them off, not thinking anything of it. But they might have eaten part of their grandfather, which is horrifying.”
Still, all of her family found amusement in the incident, including her children’s grandmother. “I said, ‘The boys got Paw Paw and they dumped him out and I didn’t realize it was him so I vacuumed him up.’” Long added. “She goes, ‘Oh no,’ but found it comical. She goes, ‘I bet PawPaw would have got a kick out of that,’ and then tells me, ‘Don’t worry, we have more Paw Paw.’”
In the comments of Long’s video, many viewers also saw the spiritual side of the comical situation.
“I mean this with absolute love, I feel like Pawpaw had a great day,” one wrote.
“He got to play with his grandkids one last time ?? !!I’m so sorry ??” another added.
“Some of my dad spilled in the back of my Kia Sorento. I scooped him up the best I could and the rest got vacuumed, lol. It makes me laugh to this day,” a third wrote.
