In my hallway closet there are two boxes of ashes.
One box contains the cremated remains of my daughter Liz, who died in 2006. The second box contains my wife’s ashes.
After Liz died, Ellen and I held onto her ashes. Early on, we discussed putting them at the base of an ancient live oak tree in a New Orleans park that Liz loved to visit.
But we never made another trip to New Orleans after Liz died.
Other than that one time, Ellen never wanted to discuss Liz’s ashes with me again. Whenever I tried to bring it up, Ellen said she just couldn’t talk about it.
So we didn’t. Instead, I stored Liz’s ashes where Ellen wouldn’t see them and brought them with us as we moved from house to house for the next 12 years.
Then Ellen died.
Before she died, I asked if she wanted me to do anything special with her ashes. She said,
“I don’t care about ashes. When I’m dead and cremated, they are just ashes. But you should talk to Zack – if you two want to do something that’s meaningful for yourselves, you should do it.”
I’ve talked to Zack. He shares his mom’s sentiments. He doesn’t care about their ashes. He’s fine with me doing anything, or nothing, with them.
So I am taking Ellen and Liz’s ashes with me on the road.
To me, these ashes are not sacred. They are the incinerated remains of the two women in my family whom I loved and lost. They don’t contain life. These ashes are not my daughter and my wife. Liz and Ellen are gone.
Yet despite this, it doesn’t feel right just throwing them away.
I’m still not sure what I will do with them. I am thinking I might scatter them in beautiful places that I think Ellen and Liz would like. Maybe some will go in the ocean, some in the forest, some in the mountains and some in fields of wildflowers.
I’d like to thinkĀ this might bring Ellen and Liz together in places they would have loved.
Maybe it will bring me some peace to share this journey with them this way.
If my wife was alive, she would be amazed that I’m going on the road.
She’d smile, laugh and tease me mercilessly about my new wardrobe. She’d cheer when I got rid of my favorite, threadbare T shirt.
She’d tell me I was crazy. But then she’d join right in.
Undoubtedly, she’d make me upgrade the camper to something with running water, a functional bathroom and AC. She’s spent her hippie days roughing it across Europe and the US and wouldn’t be as extreme as me.
But we’d have a blast together.
I wish she was here with me.
Instead, I have her ashes.