(CNN) – A woman in California is desperate to help her son find his father’s cremated remains.
The U.S. Postal Service delivered the ashes, but to the wrong address.
Fifty-four-year-old Michael Voorhees’ life was cut tragically short by an aggressive form of cancer; it was heartbreaking to all who knew and loved him.
“He battled skin cancer and it came back a year later, and it was metastatic and it completely just, we were not expecting that,” Anna Garcia said.
Garcia, an emergency room nurse, shared a 23-year-old son with Voorhees.
Voorhees died last month in Arizona. His ashes were to be divided and shared among four loved ones.
Garcia and her son, who are in San Jose, were supposed to get their ashes delivered directly from the cremation service via certified mail.
The USPS tracking number showed that the ashes were delivered Jan. 18 in the afternoon, but Garcia and her son never received them.
“We investigated and we found out that USPS had delivered the ashes, but to a different address,” Garcia said.
The news was devastating.
“My son is the one who’s really distraught,” Garcia described. “We’re having a celebration of life for him, and then we’re not going to have the ashes.”
Other relatives received a large envelope with a clearly-marked label saying “cremated remains.”
The United States Postal Service provided a statement on Wednesday.
“The station has sent multiple representatives to the location where the item was delivered. Unfortunately, no one answered the door during those attempts. The matter has been escalated to the Inspection Service, who will be making efforts today to assist in the recovery of this package. We deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. We acknowledge the sensitivity of this mis-delivered item and will continue to pursue efforts to recover it,” the USPS said in the statement.
Garcia acknowledged that the Postal Service has been working with them, but both she and her son are desperate to get his father’s remains.
She’s posted on NextDoor, trying to get the word out encouraging whoever might have the remains to take them to the post office.
“If the ashes are sitting in someone’s mailbox or their kitchen table, their living room, we want to bring Mike home to his son,” Garcia said.
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