Alberta family navigates vacation death nightmare: ‘Basically stuck there’
A vacation ahead of the holidays for a Calgary couple to relax before the Christmas chaos ended in tragedy — which triggered a bureaucratic nightmare.
“They booked business class, they booked diving trips, they booked all sorts of really cool things to do together to kind of reconnect,” says Meagan Grabst of her parent’s dream vacation.
But the unthinkable happened on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. While scuba diving, her stepdad Glenn Boyd had trouble breathing and drowned before he could reach the surface.
Three weeks later, Grabst’s mom, Christine Boyd, is still in Mexico fighting to get her husband’s ashes and death certificate.
“She’s basically stuck there now,” says Grabst.
“We’re just waiting for all of these processes to go through and trying to get her home.”
Glenn was cremated at a Mexican funeral home and there is a $6,500 fee to get his ashes and death certificate released.
The money has been transferred to the home, but the bank warns it could take 10 business days for the funds to clear, leaving Christine in the country for a few more weeks.
“She doesn’t want to leave without him,” says Grabst.
“She said, ‘I can’t do that, I’ll sleep on the beach before I leave without him.'”
The longer Christine stays in Mexico, the more the fees are adding up. On top of the bill for the funeral home, there are the rising accommodation costs and last-minute flights once Christine has the ashes, which has the family relying on the generosity of others.
Grabst was able to raise $16,000 in four days as part of a GoFundMe to help the costs and some of that money already on its way south.
“Thank God we raised that money, we wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise,” says Grabst. “I really wish Glenn could see the way people stood up
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