Ornamental







Blessings to you, during this difficult time of year for many of us.

I've handled Christmas pretty well since Ian died.  Partly as we'd not really developed/embedded traditions before he passed, partly because I have a very young child who I want to experience and have memories of the childhood magic and joy of the season.

So I bring you my Christmas Eve musing...

Some have a trophy wife; I have an ornamental husband*.

Ian actually hangs on our Christmas tree.  Well, part of him, anyway.

He's up near the top (safer that way, with an active toddler and all).

At our Church's 2012 Christmas community event that we hold in early December, one of the stalls was run by the wife of a Minister from another parish.  Her hobby is glasswork, making jewellery mostly.

But she also makes small amphora for placing a hope or wish in, written on a small piece of paper.
I saw them on her stall, and immediately my mind went to work about Ian’s ashes.   I’d already had some preserved in a glass orb (or as our best man puts it, I’ve turned him into a paperweight), so I asked her if she thought placing some in the amphora would work.  She thought so, and very, very kindly gave me one as a gift.

About a quarter teaspoon of ashes fit into the vial, and I sealed it with some candle wax. 

And so John and I have a new tradition.  For the last two Christmases, we've hung daddy on the Christmas tree.  Ian's still a part of it all, watching over as our son grows in excitement around the season, and as gifts get placed and opened.

I like that.

*full credit for this line has to go to our Minister, and Ian would have absolutely cracked up at it.

Photo: the amphora with Ian's ashes hanging on our tree.

Heavy

Dave fishing in Yellowstone

When I spread Dave's ashes it will be the third time I've spread someone's ashes. The first time, my dad and I emptied a paper bag of what used to be my mother's body into a stream she loved. The second time I numbly shook a box of my father's remains around the base of one of the trees he'd planted in his garden.

This time around will be the hardest. I dread releasing Dave's ashes and yet I want to have it over with. I want his ashes to be a part of nature and not trapped in this box that has me somehow trapped as well. I feel trapped under the weight of it. The weight of the decision.

Ocean? River? Woods? What would he want? I suppose the only thing he'd want would be for me to make it easiest on me. He wouldn't want me worrying and debating over what to do or how to do it.

But I keep thinking of other people who might want to be there and how to accommodate them when all I can picture is being alone when I finally do it. The idea of carrying my own weight of sadness is almost unbearable. Adding the weight of others' feels impossible. It's the selfish truth of it all.

I'm a little annoyed with Dave, to be honest. I asked him several times where he'd want to be scattered after he died and he wouldn't answer me. I believe he was afraid to even talk about it, much less plan for it. He preferred to avoid talking about things he didn't want to think about. I made sure he knew where I'd want to be scattered. I wish he'd told me too. On the other hand, maybe making the decision myself was yet another way he is teaching me to trust myself.

Now, I decide. And if I pick somewhere I love, will it forever be tinged with sadness or will it be a special place I'll feel comforted in? Do I scatter them where we were married, in Mt. Rainier State Park? Do I dump them in a river he liked to fish from? Do I scatter them in the surf (which somehow comforts me the most, maybe because the ocean itself has always comforted me)?

Do I continue to cling to them and avoid the decision indefinitely? This one question feels like the easiest to answer. I don't want to carry that weight around forever and I want his remains to be a part of nature. It's just the decision in the way.

Make the decision and let go of that particular worry, a part of me says, while another part of me is paralyzed. 

The two year anniversary of his death is coming up and I feel as though that would be as good a time as any to finally do this, but planning it seems beyond me. As I have all along, I will have to surrender to this process and wait for the day when it becomes clear what I should do. Forcing it has never worked. I will one day be sure, but until then I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

But those ashes are heavy on my heart and mind.

The Beach

Cannon Beach from Ecola State Park (from here)

The sun rose in a blue sky and all I could do was sob. The beautiful day was mocking me and my thoughts began the spiral down. “I am so lost”, I thought. “I don’t belong here. Where is he? Where is my life? When will I feel safe again? Will I?”

I cried until I felt sick, until tears dropped from my chin and onto the floor, my shirt, my feet. I cried and cried and cried.

Eventually, the promise of feeling sun on my skin began to make the weight lessen until I could formulate a vague plan. I’d go to the beach. Look out at the blue Pacific. Lie in the sand and let the earth hold onto me. I’d let the ocean provide the peace I couldn’t find within myself.

And suddenly, the thought “I’ll throw his ashes in the ocean today” just appeared in my mind. I had never considered it before and decided to act on the impulse. I could easily see myself holding the plastic bag of ashes into the wind at the edge of the water, letting the wind carry his remains out to sea.

So much of this terrible journey has been about following my instincts. I don’t have a clue when I’ll be ready to do something as impossible as open that box and witness the gray ashes that constitute my best friend’s remains, but when I am, I’d better just do it. If I have the strength today, I might not again for a while. Get it over with. Push through it. Maybe I tend to rush too much, but I do know that my impulses regarding Dave’s death have never steered me wrong so far.

I slid the large oak box off the closet shelf and carefully turned it upside down to inspect the workings. Four screws held the bottom on. Once I unscrewed them, I’d see his remains for the first time. I suppressed the urge to throw up as I dug a screwdriver out of storage and carefully unscrewed one, two, three, four times, all the while wondering how it was possible that I was holding Dave’s ashes in my lap. That Dave is ashes.

After removing the bottom, I saw the gray ashes inside the plastic bag. I carefully poked the surface. Dense. Thick. Heavy. Dark gray. Describes the way grief feels perfectly.

I reattached the bottom plate and packed the box, the screwdriver and a pair of scissors to cut the bag open. I added a blanket, water and a snack and began the 2 hour drive to the ocean.

As the miles disappeared behind me, I cried some more. I grasped onto a few moments of clarity and less pain. I lapsed into a few moments of utter numbness and detachment.

Then, on the horizon, as I approached Cannon Beach, I caught a glimpse of the blue blue Pacific and haystack rock. The waves appeared to be still from this far away, frozen in perfect frothiness. The blue was dense and almost unnatural in the spring sunshine. I felt a tiny flicker of peace inside me.

The closer I got to the trail I wanted to take to take to the shore, the more the clouds rolled in. Finally, I pulled into the parking lot, used the state park bathroom, and gathered the bag and blanket and realized… I’d forgotten my wallet and that here at the shore, the weather was cold and gray, not warm and golden as I’d envisioned. I felt cold, lost and weak.

 Thankfully, the gas tank was full enough to get me home, but my desire to be at the ocean had evaporated. All I could think of was getting home.

I realized how incredibly vulnerable my grief had made me that day. I’d been unable to think through the simplest plan. I’d even maybe been a bit of a danger on the roads. The condition I was in and road travel just weren’t a good combination.

Defeated, I drove home without ever making it down to the beach. I left the box of Dave in the car for the time being. I didn't have the energy to bring it back up to my apartment.

Maybe the day will come when I feel ready to try again. I have given over the reigns to grief. It carries on at its own rate, no matter what I do.

I still envision a beautiful sunny day on the coast, me retracing our own footsteps from years ago. Gulls crying, waves crashing, wet sand cool beneath my toes and Dave's ashes being carried away on the wind, into the Pacific.