The appeal of eating a loved one’s ashes | Letters

Readers respond to an article by Rachael Stirling

I would like to reassure Rachael Stirling (‘I didn’t expect to be portrayed as a cannibal’: Rachael Stirling on eating her mother Diana Rigg’s ashes, 11 October) that, far from grimacing or feeling disgust over her admission of eating a few grains of her mother’s ashes, I was deeply moved. My best friend’s beloved mother died last year and I immediately sent the quote to her, as I knew it would resonate with her.

As your review of Stirling’s book entitled All About My Mother states, she eats a grain of her mother’s ashes so that she is “cloaked in her, shielded and shrouded by her. I am her. My mother is my superpower. She always was.”