Man sifts through the debris of his burned home to find urn holding his late wife’s ashes

By Joy Benedict, Dean Fioresi

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    ALTADENA, California (KCAL, KCBS) — As some Altadena residents start returning to the burnt shells of what used to be their neighborhoods, they’re looking for any lingering pieces of what could be left behind.

One of those residents, Mark Rodriguez, was among the many witnessing what was left of their homes on Mariposa Drive on Friday afternoon. He was hoping to find the wedding rings he left behind when fleeing the Eaton Fire.

“Hoping, maybe, by luck that we’d find our wedding rings. I hung ’em there and didn’t take them, thinking we’d come back,” Rodriguez said.

He says that his wife, Yvonne, died in 2018 inside of the house they shared for so many years.

While sifting through the debris left behind by the devastating fire, Rodriguez and KCAL News reporter Joy Benedict found the remains of the urn that hold his late wife’s ashes.

The vessel had broken into multiple pieces during the moments that their home was engulfed by flames, one of dozens in Altadena completely razed over the last few days.

“They’re just gonna bulldoze it and she’ll just go back to the earth,” Rodriguez said. “She’d love it, actually. … God, isn’t that so funny? Well, I guess all people do, you know, ashes to ashes. She’s among the ashes now, and she would like that.”

Instead of gathering what pieces of the urn he could, Rodriguez chose to leave the urn and ashes where he felt they belonged, with the memories that they shared for so many years.

Currently, Rodriguez is staying with family elsewhere in Southern California, but he says he fully plans to rebuild a home in the exact same spot.

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