My Mother’s Yarzheit…. Sedona, AZ March 21, 2017

Some people can barely suppress their shock when I tell them I am still spreading my mother’s ashes, 13 years after her passing. Most people don’t have such authority when it comes to these types of things… there are typically other opinionated relatives to contend with. And there is typically one favorite place or a family homestead, an obvious choice for a person’s eternal resting place. Parceling out my mother’s ashes might seem sacrilegious. But we didn’t share much religion. I don’t have siblings, my parents divorced, and at the time of her death, she had no real home. When special delivery rang my bell in Boston with a box from the crematorium in Florida, my insides ached all over again with the stabbing pain I felt upon first learning of her death. Only a couple of weeks had passed, but this box, so heavy and tangible, its ordinary card board covered with packing labels and stickers, offended whatever equilibrium I’d gained.

I had no idea what to do with it.  She hadn’t left instructions, there was no right answer. So I came up with something that felt right to me. My mother’s cremains have become the vehicle for my honoring her over and over again. Instead of performing one ritual, I’ve carried out many private rituals over the years. Her ashes have been judiciously spread all over the globe. My mother rests in places she would have liked to visit, from the southern tip of Chile to as far north as Iceland.  The weekend before she died she spoke of taking a trip around the world. My reaction back then, given her health, had been skeptical.  So now, it seems only right that I bring her along with me.  Her first journey with me was to the great barrier reef in Australia.  My mother loved to snorkel and talked about wanting to visit there for as long as I can remember.

The bulk of her ashes sit with me in Boston. She is in a beautiful green-glazed, ceramic, ginger jar from China, sitting on a shelf close to where I write. But whenever I pack for an exotic destination, I spoon a little bit of my mom into a Ziploc bag. Scooping up the white granules with a kitchen spoon is strange enough, and I imagine many wouldn’t have the stomach for it, but it’s allowed her to join me in Australia, Africa, Bhutan, Peru, Patagonia, the Alps, and the Rockies. She even summited Mt Kilimanjaro. She’s been sprinkled off the top of many spectacular mountains. Honoring my mother in this way has kept us closer than pure memories could have.  I carry my mom in my heart and mind, but there’s also a little bit of her tucked inside my luggage. I’ve recited a prayer of love to her as she scatters into the wind, often with friends by my side, or with my husband and children.  I sometimes take traveling companions by surprise when announcing, “this is the place.”  Then performing yet another letting-go ceremony.

On the thirteenth anniversary of my mom’s death, my daughter, who happens to be named after my mother, and I spent some time during her spring break hiking and having a healthy vacation in Sedona, AZ. The scenery was spectacular. We were getting up early, doing yoga, and eating well. We even had a spa day, something my mother would have had a hard time indulging in.  But she was definitely with us.

I sense her pride in our relationship, always nearby rooting us on. She is proud of the women we are, and that we have become those women partly to honor her. To honor all the things she was unable to do. After climbing a beautiful path up a red rock formation, we stopped to take a break and I knew it was the right place.  How I wish she was still with us in person. But she was with us in spirit, she always is.