‘Harper was loved’: Siesta Key neighbors find box of ashes washed in by Hurricane Helene
‘Harper was loved’: Siesta Key neighbors find box of ashes washed in by Hurricane Helene
Lisa Dority said she hopes to find the owners and reunite them with their recovered treasured memory.
SIESTA KEY, Fla. — Hurricane Helene has turned people’s lives topsy-turvy, and many have lost precious lifelong and irreplaceable mementos to the disaster.
That sense of immense loss is why one woman in Siesta Key is on a mission to get someone’s memory back home to them. She hopes to reunite a box of ashes with the rightful owner after it washed up in their yard from the storm.
“One of ours is in a urn and if it disappeared, we want it back too because it’s our heart and everything’s heart,” said Lisa Dority, a Siesta Key neighbor.
As she cleans up the mess left behind by the storm and puts things to the curb, Dority said she thinks about all the memories blown away or sunken by Hurricane Helene’s winds and waters. One post-storm discovery — an oak box nestled among the bamboo in the backyard — especially tugs at her heart.
“Harper was found in the backyard. Bill was going through some stuff back here and he found Harper approximately in this area, and then Bill handed me Harper and I said ‘I’ll try to find the owner,'” Dority said while describing how the box was found.
The brown box has an inscription on a gold plate that reads, ‘Harper was loved.’ Dority took photos of the box and posted them to social media with a note looking to reunite the urn. Her post has since gone viral as other neighbors shared the post to try to help find the owner.
While many people wondered if it was the remains of a human family member, Dority conducted some research and believes it’s likely the remains of a beloved pet.
“The scroll — that was how I could find out that it was a pet urn, and I tried to open it from the bottom but the salt water has rusted the screws. There may be a tag on the inside, I don’t know, but that’s why I think it’s a cat or like a Yorkie or a Chihuahua maybe,” she said.
Lisa’s landlord John has a similar box with the ashes of their 19-year-old cat who died last year.
“It’s a reminder of years that we had Zoomer. Seeing the horrendous damage that the surge did to the house afterward, I would probably get a little sad about the urn,” said John Gardener, a Siesta Key homeowner.
For now, as they continue their cleanup process, they are keeping Harper safe until the rightful owners come calling or knocking.
“There’s a lot of people that are on the island that haven’t come back yet and when they come back, you know, it’s very eye-opening. You just become very humble. I guess you realize how important everything is to you and any kind of material things that you can get back that relate to family you’ll want them back so hopefully we can get Harper returned,” Dority said.
If the box looks familiar or you know a friend looking for their lost urn, you can connect with Dority directly through her Facebook page.