Adelaide beauty brand founder Samantha Aimes-Costa flew to Paris with her late mother’s ashes in a Dolce & Gabbana water bottle
An Aussie beauty brand founder flew business class to Paris carrying her mother’s ashes in a designer water bottle the whole way. Find out why.
Cancer
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cancer. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Samantha Aimes-Costa and her mum Susan Telfer loved Paris — they loved the fashion, culture and the beautiful architecture.
Ms Telfer adored the city of love so much that before she died six months ago from triple-negative metastatic breast cancer she asked her 33-year-old daughter to make her a promise to bring her ashes there for one last trip, before she scattered them in her home town in the UK.
Now, Ms Aimes-Costa, along with her husband Jesse, are fulfilling her promise – taking her 65-year-old mother’s ashes to Paris on a business-class plane ride – secured in a Dolce & Gabbana water bottle.
But not before pre-flight mimosas.
“Mum and I always said how ugly all the urn options are,” Ms Aimes-Costa said.
The pair loved designer brands and eventually when Ms Aimes-Costa came across the designer bottle she wondered if it would be “unhinged” to put the ashes in there.
“I put it on my Instagram story as a joke … but I got hundreds of messages saying I had to do it … I know she would have loved it,” she said.
“I also got a small love heart gold urn.”
While Paris was the mother and daughter’s favourite place, having visited together before and during Ms Telfer’s terminal diagnosis, Ms Aimes-Costa will be scattering her mother’s ashes in the Lake District in the UK, where she is from.
“It was her happy place, so I promised her that I would take her ashes back there for her,” she said.
“Initially, in the first few months, I felt so sad and anxious at the idea of scattering her ashes.
“It felt really painful and unfair but over time it’s really changed into being something beautiful I can do for her and to honour her wishes.
“She is the one that made me promise we would also do a proper big Europe trip at the same time.”
Ms Aimes-Costa is a lash technician and founder of Call Me Daddy, a beauty brand.
She said she’s always needed to return home for her clients for their lash “refills” and never taken a long trip.
“She wanted us to have a proper break as she knew losing her would be so tough,” Ms Aimes-Costa, who also hosts a podcast called ‘Straighten Your Crown’ in honour of her Mum, said.
“I’m so sad we’ll never get to do Paris together again, but Mum and I started talking about all the places Jesse and I would go – and she said she was so excited to ‘come with us’ ... as ashes.
“She was telling her friends she was ‘going to Europe’ – she had a wicked sense of humour.”
Ms Telfer was keen to “travel” to Lake Como to find George Clooney.
Ms Aimes-Costa is not only scattering her mother’s ashes.
As well as keeping a small amount in the heart urn, she has sent some to Switzerland to have them turned into a diamond ring.
“It takes about one year to turn ashes into a diamond that way I can wear her diamond and she’ll truly be with me forever,” she said.
Ms Telfer was first diagnosed when Ms Aimes-Costa was 14 years old, but managed to fight the cancer and go in remission for 10 years.
“Then it came back when I was in my mid-twenties,” Ms Aimes-Costa said.
“She got through it again but it sadly came back just after my 30th birthday and this time it was terminal.
“It was all through her body, brain, neck, lungs, lymph nodes, stomach and eventually bones.
“She got just over three years still, we weren’t sure we’d even get one, so we were grateful we got as much time as we did.
“Most importantly she was here for Jesse and I’s wedding and (she was able) to walk me down the aisle.”
During Ms Telfer’s final week of life, she was in Mary Potter Hospice, and Ms Aimes-Costa moved into her room and set up a camping bed.
They held a living funeral for her and even had therapy horses come to visit.
“The moment mum passed, I wasn’t expecting it,” Ms Aimes-Costa said.
“She kept saying to me ‘in the last week, when I can’t talk anymore, I’m always saying that I love you, together forever my sunshine’.
“My Mum (was still speaking) to me on Wednesday, when she died Thursday morning at 3am I didn’t think we’d get there so quickly.
“She really stayed with me right till the end.
“That Wednesday night when the death rattle began, which I was not prepared for, no one talks about it, but that’s when I realised, oh my god, I’m literally going to be laying in this bed with my Mum until she’s dead, I’m in a bed with a dying person, and it’s the person I love most in this world, it was so cruel, so beautiful to be there with her until the end.
“You think you know pain and heartbreak but when you go through something like this it changes you as a person forever.
“I didn’t just lose a Mum, my best friend, I don’t have just the trauma of losing her from my life and missing her, I have a trauma of a person passing away literally in my arms.
“I’ve watched someone’s face as they took their final breath.
“It’s genuinely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through.”
Ms Aimes-Costa said holding her mother in her final moment of life was a “beautiful thing”.
“It changes you and it haunts you but it also puts your life into perspective in ways nothing else could,” she said.
“You don’t care about the little things, you value people and time, balance, on being happy.
“You see who really shows up for you when things are tough.”
Ms and Mr Aimes-Costa are currently on their Europe adventure with Ms Telfer, sharing it online on Ms Aimes-Costa’s Instagram to over 37,000 followers.
More Coverage
Originally published as Adelaide beauty brand founder Samantha Aimes-Costa flew to Paris with her late mother’s ashes in a Dolce & Gabbana water bottle
TV presenter: I’ve been through things that break most people
Barry Du Bois opens up like never before on how he spiralled into the darkness of depression – and came out the other end – after going through things that would break most people.
I found out I had aggressive cancer halfway into my pregnancy
Rocio Albornoz was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in her second trimester. This is the remarkable story of how little Liam was delivered safely into the world.