Sorry, USC, My Mother Two-Timed You

My mother willed her body to medicine — twice — first to University of Southern California’s School of Medicine. Apparently without withdrawing that donation (which is supposed to be done in writing, or at least with witnesses), near her life’s end she turned around and donated herself to UC Irvine School of Medicine. 

When I tried to talk to my mother about the USC donation — the only one I was certain about — I only got, “No! No! Not USC! UCI! UCI!” When I asked about the change, that only got more, “UCI! UCI!” When I asked about a phone number or paperwork, “You don’t need that! UCI! It’s UCI!”

I knew about the USC donation because I remembered my parents discussing it. Motivated more by the possibility of a tax write-off than altruism, they agreed to donate their bodies to USC in 1977. My father, when facing his last days, was at least conscientious enough to give me a phone number. 

When a hospital employee asked me about the disposition of my mother’s body, I could only guess a donation to UCI best represented her wishes. I didn’t have a phone number but the hospital provided one. 

When I called the number and explained, there was a pause, a clicking of keys, then, “She’s not in our system.”

I was about to hang up and call USC, when the person on the other end of the line said they could take the information and make arrangements over the phone. So I did.

USC had offered me the option of returning my father’s remains. Getting his remains back and determining their final resting place proved complicated. I weighed my options: scatter his ashes and dispose of the container myself, pay a professional service such as the Neptune Society, or inter the ashes in a cemetery. Since he was entitled to be interred in a veteran’s cemetery, all expenses paid, that’s what I did. 

My mother wasn’t covered by veteran’s benefits, but this time the solution was simple. UCI doesn’t offer the option of returning the remains. It sees to the scattering of the ashes.

I found records of the donations to both schools only when I moved into my mother’s house and tackled the job of clearing away a lifetime of papers. The USC paperwork is dated May 18, 1977 and witnessed by the next-door neighbors at the time. The UCI paperwork is dated Dec. 8, 2013 and witnessed by the current next-door neighbor and his wife — the one my mother insisted she didn’t know. Under next-of-kin, my mother put, “Self.” A donor card was provided to be carried in one’s wallet, billfold, or purse. Obviously it wasn’t.

Two things bother me: that the UCI woman couldn’t find my mother in her system — perhaps the paperwork was never properly processed — and that I had to apologize to USC for my mother stiffing its willed-body program.