A Queens family is demanding that a funeral home be shut down, alleging it cremated their 93-year-old matriarch against her explicit final wish to be buried. Overcome with grief and emotion, relatives gathered outside the Jamaica, Queens, funeral home they say failed their family, saying they have been left without any closure over how their mother's remains were handled.
The woman, a mother of 11 children with dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, died on July 8. According to the family, her final wish was to be buried in her home country of Guyana, laid to rest next to her own grandmother, a request they say was clear and well known to those who loved her.
Instead of preparing her body for burial, the family alleges, the J. Foster Phillips Funeral Home had the woman cremated. Relatives said the funeral home then dodged their questions and eventually returned ashes that the family says they cannot prove are even hers, deepening a sense of betrayal over how the arrangements were carried out.
"We have lost our mom twice," one relative said, describing the pain of losing her in death and then losing her body. The family said the mistake stripped them of the chance to honor a woman who they say spent a lifetime helping others, leaving them without the burial and the resting place she had wanted for herself.
Standing alongside their attorneys and civil rights leaders, the family pointed to a death certificate they say proves that the woman's wish to be buried was very clear. They called for the funeral home to be shut down immediately and demanded that the state open an investigation into how the cremation came to happen.
Attempts to get answers from the funeral home were unsuccessful. When reporters went to the business, the parking lot was empty, the shades were drawn and the front door was locked. Someone from inside came to the door but refused to comment, leaving the grieving family still searching for a way to honor their mother's final wish.