My best friend's mother passed away.

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One of my best friends mother passed away Monday. We have been friends since highschool and our families are very close. Her mother really was like a second mom to me. She was diagnosted with cancer on her pancrease about a year ago. She slowly declined, was on chemo and radiation therapy for awhile which had shrunk the tumor about 3 months ago. Then she started to get sick again and slowly declined after that. About a month ago the tumor had spread to her liver. After that she had decided no more treatment and had gone into palative care and after about a week started hospice. She had gone into a coma last week and hung on to life for almost a week. She took her last breath with her husband, youngest son, neice, and the nurse on Monday. I went with my friend to pick up her remains today (she was cremated). It was very weird watching my friend handle the box. Actually it was quite weird driving with the remains in my car. Although she knows that her mother isn't inside of that box (her spirit isn't anyways) she said she couldn't help her self when she was petting the box gentlely. She got home and had set the box on the table and her cat came over and was rubbing her body on the box. She pushed her cat away and put the box in another place so her cat couldn't get to it. I asked her why she did that and she said she didn't want her cat near the box. I wasn't about to argue with her or ask her why but it made me think. knowing that it was just ashes in the box of her moms body, why was she so protective of it? I mean the box was completely sealed and inside of the box, the ashes were in a sealed container as well so it isn't like there was a chance they could spill out. Has anyone else experienced this before either first hand or with a loved one? I am just having a hard time dealing with it. I am not at all being uncompassionate - I love my bestfriend and her family and miss her mom dearly. But I am just kinda curious if this is normal to treat remains in that matter. Thanks for replying.