It was well after her husband's death that Canadian essayist Jessica Waite discovered that Sean had cheated on her with several women and high-priced escorts. Overcome by grief and betrayal, Waite had torn open the packet containing Sean's ashes and mixed some of it with her dog's faeces to "desecrate" his remains. Then, she ate some of it.
Recounting the incident in her memoir A Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards, Waite wrote, "In despair and guilt, took more of his ashes — and actually ate them. The remains feel dry against my fingertips, coarser than baking powder, grainier than salt. They mix with the teary water, a mineral mud on the back of my tongue. I swallow.”
Sean had died in 2015 while on a work trip to Texas and his affairs came to light when Waite checked his iPad for the details of the hospital that holding his body, and discovered his damning browsing history, the New York Post reported.
She then spent months unravelling her late husband's secret life. She learned that he regularly entertained escorts and cheated on her with several women. He was also addicted to pornography and lied to her about having to work late on certain nights when he was busy downloading hundreds of pornographic videos on his computer. Waite also found out that he had rented an apartment in Colorado, where he would meet with escorts and other women.
In her recently-released book, Waite wrote that she could not come to terms with the reality of her husband’s secret double life and started losing it. While thinking about his betrayals, she described feeling “detached from reality in the wake of Sean’s death” especially when she consumed his ashes.
“I feel better and stronger than before, but I still cry almost every day, and I still feel like a part of me has died,” Waite wrote. “Because the part of me that existed within Sean did.”
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