Cremation

I've had four experiences with spreading ashes: my mother, father and two best friends.

I dreaded going to the funeral home to arrange for Harriet's cremation. To my surprise the visit did not upset me, due mostly to the skill of the woman I dealt with, who already had important necessary things started. She had a way of making me relaxed even under the circumstances. The meeting lasted only fifteen minutes. And it cost much less than I anticipated.

I am keeping her ashes in an urn, so our ashes can be spread together after I pass.

Cremation is more popular than ever but the experience isn't perfect. 

Here is a poem about spreading my mother's ashes, from my book of poems, In My Old Age.

Applegate  

Under a warm sun in a blue sky 

we spread my mother's ashes 

in the Applegate 

at her favorite fishing hole.  

This was a special place. 

When we returned, 

we knew we'd find her

perched on a rock 

line dangling in the river 

crossword puzzle in her lap 

oblivious to all cares 

(oblivious even to the fish)

This was the way 

we wanted to remember her.  

But it was not to be.  

Years later I returned 

(living far away) 

and struggled to find the spot

 finally driving through rain

 along a new road by a lake

brown and foreboding against a dam.

  I rented a boat 

but no matter where I rowed 

I had no sense of her rock

or the fishing hole 

or her spirit below me.  

How I wish we'd given her 

a marked stone 

in the golf course of a cemetery.  

Graveyards belong to the living.