metanoia's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peace When I spoke to my brother on Sunday, I knew he missed me. I knew I missed him. The sad reality that the people we missed no longer existed was shut away for awhile and we just felt the empty place that person once filled. Since his stroke, it is though the person I knew and interacted with no longer exists and has been replaced with a watered down version - a shadow, a slight essence of the person he was pre-stroke. I told him of how I scattered my mothers ashes in the sweet Pacific, 16 years after her death, her last wishes fulfilled. I did not take him to task for holding her ashes hostage for 16 years. That is quite a while to wait for your final wishes to be respected. Perhaps it is not that long in "dead time". Perhaps it is only a blink of an eye, or even no time at all, because time is a man-made thing anyway. "Dead time" is probably no time at all. I dunno. It just felt good and right for ME to inter her ashes in the final resting place. My mother never liked my brother's wife, her daughter-in-law. She dreaded spending any time in their home and never felt welcome. It is ironic that after she died, her remains "lived with" her for 16 years. heh. If the dead cared at all, and maybe they do, my mother's spirit would have been having fits constantly. Talk about hell, or at least purgatory... heh So I told him is was a complete for me and I know he felt it too. My experience in a nutshell: While visiting brother in May, he offered the ashes and asked me to distribute them in the Pacific as mother had asked. I was stunned and thrilled. I gladly accepted. This had been bothering me since her death. This - completion of a circle. Some circle. I don't really know. Dare I say the worn out word - closure? We planned to go early morning. We awoke, puttered around. Not really talking about the task at hand, but all our movements choreographed toward that moment when the ashes would be strewn in the sea, her happy final home. A note about urns. I had never even looked at the urn. I didn't know it was more like a box. Like a Chinese puzzle box that could never be opened, especially by two rather exasperated, leery, half-squicked out people in a motel room with no real tools to open this hermetically sealed, metal, never-to-be-opened-by-human-hands box. It took over 45 minutes and every thing in the motel room that remotely looked like a plier, screwdriver, mallet, chisel - anything to open a metal box -was used, broken or discarded as ineffective. Finally, my wonderful fingernail scissors that I paid a small fortune for had the nice sharp tips broken off and was jammed in the side while fingernail clippers pried the other side and got enough of a space to get a finger hold and pry it apart. We were squicked out and worried that "mom" would go flying all over the motel room, but after 45 minutes we didn't care - we just needed it open - by that time we were hammering jamming and busting all over that box, ashes flying be damned. When we finally got the box opened - ta da! there was a bag. A nice, thick plastic bag with a metal keeper on it. Yay. No ashes in motel room. SUCH a plus. After this monumental emotional and physical effort, we took a little break to calm our nerves and kind of get back to a properly reverent state of mind. Gah! When we were sufficiently calmed, we took the bag and walked over to the beach. We sat awhile, prayed awhile, remembered a little and K left me to be silent for awhile. As I sat, a black crow landed 5 feet from me. I stared out to sea. The crow stared out to sea. Then, the crow called 5 times. I saw it as a sign. "Is this right? Is this good? Is this as it should be?", I thought. The crow called 3 times and said no more. It felt right to me. "Let's go on in.", I said to K. "Ready?", he asked. "Yes.", I said. We swam out, just a bit beyond the breakers. We slit open the bag and released what remained of my mother to the sea. The Pacific, where she spend many wonderful times as a young woman, a place with happy memories before a hard life filled her with sadness and regret. "Peace, mom.", I said, "Peace." Back at the motel room, I went out to the balcony and looked out to sea. I watched that crow fly from the beach and land ON MY BALCONY RAILING! It called 3 times, sat a moment and flew away - inland. "Peace.", I thought, and walked back in the room. 9:24 a.m. - 2004-08-05 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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