Florida Mom Never Received Infant’s Ashes & Now the Funeral Home Is Ghosting Her

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains information about stillbirth and infant loss, which may be triggering to some.

Losing a child is likely the worst thing that can happen to a parent. You mourn the relationship you had with the little one for whatever amount of time spent together. You also mourn the possibility of the life you imagined for the child and yourself. Nothing will ever erase the trauma completely.

But grieving rituals such as memorial services, funerals, and saying goodbye can help to aid in the healing process. Sadly, the opportunity to do so has been halted for one Florida mother for months.

'I don't want anyone to have this experience,' the grieving mother says.

Deondraneshia Williams of Tallahassee, Florida, gave birth to her son prematurely. Sadly, he died 26 days later in November 2022 after being transferred from Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville. Four months later, a Gainesville funeral home has yet to return his ashes.

“I want justice for my baby,” Williams told WCTV. “I don’t want anyone else to have this experience.”

Williams began calling the funeral home in December 2022.

Staff at UF Health Shands Hospital recommended that Williams use Forest Meadows Funeral Home for her son’s cremation. Williams did and signed consent forms for the services. But things went south after that. Her calls to check on the status of her son’s cremation, which she began making in December 2022, have not been returned.

“They didn’t sympathize for what was going on with me,” Williams said, according to WCTV. “It was like he was just another baby there — just another person who died.”

Sadly, another mother has already had this experience with Forest Meadows.

Williams last called Forest Meadows on March 17. An employee told her that the cremation machine had broken and wouldn’t be fixed until March 28. Since then, Williams has found another mother who had a similar experience with the same funeral home back in 2018.

“The situation is already hard enough, and I just feel like I hit every roadblock I could with that funeral home,” Jessica Kotzen said, according to WCTV. “It was horrible.”

Inquiries from the media also have gone unanswered.

Kotzen’s son died at 18 days old. Ultimately, Kotzen and her family had to reach out to her doctor to have the ashes returned to her.

When WCTV reached out to Forest Meadows for a response to the funeral home's handling of Williams’ ashes, an employee directed the caller to the person in charge of infant cremation. WCTV’s inquiries went unanswered.

Williams had to cancel plans to honor her son.

WCTV also reached out to Health Shands Hospital with questions, but a hospital representative said they did not have anyone available to comment on the matter.

In the time she’s spent waiting, Williams has had to cancel the memorial she planned for her son in January. She also had planned to wear her son's ashes in a necklace but has been unable to do so.

"I want to bring awareness and get some closure from one mother/parent to another mother/parent It’s me today and could be easily somebody else tomorrow ," Williams wrote on Facebook.