Taking it with you - you can't, you don't, and really, it doesn't get left behind either.
Everything of my mother's broke, deteriorated, disappeared or died shortly after she did. The family she tried to believe would reconcile and care about one another fell apart. Her cat ran away, never to be seen again, her clothes went off somewhere, the antiques had been sold, very few of her personal effects held together once she left the planet. Even her intentions about where her body would wind up were scattered on the breeze. There was an autopsy which she never would have wanted, there was resistance from the church where she wanted her ashes left to having them left there, even though she had paid for the privilege.
I got a run around that lasted years about planting flowers in a spot and putting her ashes there, they told me I was only going to be allowed to scatter her in the forest behind the church and if I wanted to plant something there, they had to take it before the committee in charge of what got planted where. I needed to stop carrying the box of ashes around, so I planted bulbs and blueberries with her ashes on the property she lived and died on, some went to a memorial garden I have near my house and the last handful I kept in a pouch thinking I would take it to France where her father was buried but after 7 years I decided it was time.
My daughter and I went out to the back of the church one day when nobody was looking and put the last portion of ashes under a euonymus that had been climbing up the back of the Lady Chapel for decades. We sprinkled her in a star formation for the pagan ancestors placed a crystal there and said some things that we needed to say and left.
I don't believe that people hang out after they leave, and that if you go to a graveyard to talk to someone it is just to bring your attention to the encounter, but that really, they are as much everywhere as anywhere.
Still, I found it jarring and another reminder of impermanence when I went there today to talk to her and saw the euonymus gone, the earth all around the church covered with chips, as though they dug everything up to install better drainage. The place had always been damp.
About 8 feet further back there had been installed 2 raised beds with seasonal flowers and a statue of St. Francis in between them. I suppose it could have been St. Joseph, I'm not really up on the statuary.
I remember trying to get the pastor to come up and give her communion the week before she decided to leave and for some reason it was inconvenient and he didn't return my calls. There was no money to be gotten from this old lady, so why bother to see that she got communion? Not important to me, but important to her, and watching her pretend she wasn't hurt by it was pain enough. The church betrayed her in the end, just as many people in her life had done.
In Tibet, there is a sky burial, in which the dead are taken to a mountain, and a priest dismembers the body, hurling it to the vultures who are waiting expectantly to devour it. I have always thought this was a beautiful idea, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be legal in this country. Failing that, planting blueberry bushes over cremated remains provided berries for songbirds who took my mother's earthly spirit to the sky where they sing, and lay eggs and raise young who eat more blueberries. A good way for her music to go on forever, or at least for as long as there are birds.
Everything of my mother's broke, deteriorated, disappeared or died shortly after she did. The family she tried to believe would reconcile and care about one another fell apart. Her cat ran away, never to be seen again, her clothes went off somewhere, the antiques had been sold, very few of her personal effects held together once she left the planet. Even her intentions about where her body would wind up were scattered on the breeze. There was an autopsy which she never would have wanted, there was resistance from the church where she wanted her ashes left to having them left there, even though she had paid for the privilege.
I got a run around that lasted years about planting flowers in a spot and putting her ashes there, they told me I was only going to be allowed to scatter her in the forest behind the church and if I wanted to plant something there, they had to take it before the committee in charge of what got planted where. I needed to stop carrying the box of ashes around, so I planted bulbs and blueberries with her ashes on the property she lived and died on, some went to a memorial garden I have near my house and the last handful I kept in a pouch thinking I would take it to France where her father was buried but after 7 years I decided it was time.
My daughter and I went out to the back of the church one day when nobody was looking and put the last portion of ashes under a euonymus that had been climbing up the back of the Lady Chapel for decades. We sprinkled her in a star formation for the pagan ancestors placed a crystal there and said some things that we needed to say and left.
I don't believe that people hang out after they leave, and that if you go to a graveyard to talk to someone it is just to bring your attention to the encounter, but that really, they are as much everywhere as anywhere.
Still, I found it jarring and another reminder of impermanence when I went there today to talk to her and saw the euonymus gone, the earth all around the church covered with chips, as though they dug everything up to install better drainage. The place had always been damp.
About 8 feet further back there had been installed 2 raised beds with seasonal flowers and a statue of St. Francis in between them. I suppose it could have been St. Joseph, I'm not really up on the statuary.
I remember trying to get the pastor to come up and give her communion the week before she decided to leave and for some reason it was inconvenient and he didn't return my calls. There was no money to be gotten from this old lady, so why bother to see that she got communion? Not important to me, but important to her, and watching her pretend she wasn't hurt by it was pain enough. The church betrayed her in the end, just as many people in her life had done.
In Tibet, there is a sky burial, in which the dead are taken to a mountain, and a priest dismembers the body, hurling it to the vultures who are waiting expectantly to devour it. I have always thought this was a beautiful idea, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be legal in this country. Failing that, planting blueberry bushes over cremated remains provided berries for songbirds who took my mother's earthly spirit to the sky where they sing, and lay eggs and raise young who eat more blueberries. A good way for her music to go on forever, or at least for as long as there are birds.
It took me four years to really come to terms with the fact that my (your/our) mother was really dead. But it saddens me that so much about the end of her life was carried on your shoulders and especially that the church, to which she gave so much, gave her so little.
ReplyDeleteRobin Williams' death was a reminder of what a burden genius brings, and now I realize, a little, how hard it was for her to live in a world which held no illusions for her.
Just the other day I did finally open up for an exchange with her and felt her presence. I never told you about going to a John Edward "Passing Over" seminar about four months after she died, He's the psychic who contacts loved ones on the Other Side and what he said gave me chills. So I know she can connect with us if we call on her.
You and she were much closer, so I am sure she knows how hard you have tried to find her a 'resting place,' and if you want, I would be willing to help put a memorial marker someplace. I had no idea that her 'reservation' at the church was rescinded...
Thanks, I would love to know what the John Edwards seminar revealed to you if you care to share, as to me being closer to her, I'm the one she was most able to manage, but there was a mountain of dishonesty between us, between us all really. How can you be close to someone who doesn't let you know who you really are? How can there be closeness when you are set against your siblings in one manner or another….She had no right to expect you to cover for her either. That was a damaging wound.
DeleteGreat way to honor her- and keep the circle of life blooming feeding and singing- for a long time one hopes.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that you had so much to go through,but the wisdom you have gained and closeness that we are gaining might not have happened but for this event. To live your life and find happiness as well as pass it onto your children is the best way to honor her memory, and I think she would agree.
ReplyDeleteFS
yes indeed. & thank you
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