30 Oct After

One month after watching Jill leave this world, I released her ashes to the Atlantic. Maryland’s barrier island, Assateague, was her favorite place, which we visited every year. She loved the wild horses. She was hoping to go one last time—hoping also to vote in the upcoming election. So much hope. She’s been gone two months now.

This was the second instance of my releasing a loved-one’s ashes. The first was my Nana, who died at 93: we took her back to her homestead in Appalachia, where her family’s house once stood, next to a rocky stream. For some reason, I was in charge of the release—just me crouched next to the stream, cradling in both hands the plastic bag that held the small but dense weight of a life that had meant so much to me.

As I watched Nana’s gray ashes swirl, eddy, then sweep downstream, I understood–as never before–one of life’s hardest lessons, that all we leave behind, all that matters, is intangible and fleeting. Yeah, we’re told this by finger-wagging clergy and wise elders and Buddhist monks et al. Carpe diem. It’s nothing to fear or dread, our end. Still, most of us stubbornly refuse even a glance at the horizon that marks it.

When I crested the Assateague dunes at dawn, with Jill in hand, I was surprised to see so many fellow campers watching the sunrise on this warmish, cloudless day. Many sat in beach chairs. Nobody was chatting or broadcasting music. It seemed all were respectful of the imminent spectacle. Surely, we humans have done this always, gaped at the new day.

I stepped off aways to do my business, ankle deep in the shallow waves. There was nothing to say. I’d had my say many times over. When I released the last of her, I said: “There, my love. No more pain.”

We can carry only so much. My pockets had been full for so long, I was relieved at last to empty them. If sometimes I succumb to tears, here in the after of our time together, they are tears informed mostly by this relief—and this release—as if to say, “All right, Jill, we’re done and you’re on your way. No worries. I’m okay, I will be okay.”

Lest you wonder, there are no ghosts in my house, only two housecats that don’t know what to make of the loud music I play after four years of silence. Singing while I cook—and sometimes dancing too–I am getting on with life because that’s what life demands. I write this now, two dawns away from the Day of the Dead, to celebrate both the “quick” and the gone and welcome their good company with love and joy.