Ashes dispersed
As of yesterday, Friday, May 4, 2012, my wife’s cremains were dispersed on our property under her father’s Sugar-Maple purchased and planted years ago.
My wife’s cremains had been sealed in a clear-plastic sack in a black plastic carton atop the giant picnic-table I built long ago that sits in our combination dining/recreation room.
My wife died Tuesday, April 17, and was cremated shortly after.
She died of cancer, a topic I blogged on this site many times. But if you need clarification, click this link, and read from the ninth paragraph down.
Her father never made completion of our house 22 years ago.
He had a stroke, an aneurysm (a burst blood-vessel in his brain), and died about a week later.
That was 1989.
Just before his stroke he gave us $500 to purchase a Sugar-Maple.
That Sugar-Maple has grown and prospered, and my wife wanted her ashes dispersed under that Sugar-Maple.
Our property is pretty much her doing, but she never requested her ashes be dispersed under that Sugar-Maple to me.
I heard that from her mother.
My wife’s mother is still alive, living independently in a retirement apartment in De Land, Fla. She’s 96, and very spry. (She takes care of so-called “old people” younger than her.)
Four were in attendance beside me.
Two were my younger brother-from-Boston and his wife.
He had bereavement-leave, as if our dispersal were a ceremony.
Another was Karin (“car-in”) Morgan, previously Karin Wahlstrom (“WALL-strum”), a friend of my wife during college.
Karin lives in the area, and is a native of the Bronx.
The fourth was Fran Swetman (“sweat-min”), the postmaster at the West Bloomfield post-office, where Fran hired my wife as a relief postmaster after my wife retired as a computer-programmer in Rochester, NY.
Fran thought the world of my wife, the best relief postmaster she ever hired.
Fran thought my wife was above-all smart, and beyond that kind and sensible. Unpretentious.
Fran and my wife became fast friends. They used to walk together in a nearby park.
I wasn’t sure I could disperse the ashes, but I did.
Karin, previously a ne’er-do-well that has since found religion, offered a prayer.
After I finished I went to Fran.
“There ya go, old buddy,” I said through tears.
“The best friend I ever had.”
“And above-all smart, and unpretentious about it,” Fran said.
With that, Fran drove back to work. She had used her lunch-hour to attend the dispersal. I was adamant she be able to attend.
“I was extremely fortunate,” I told Karin. “I got a good one; and I coulda done a lot worse.
I sure stole enough of her ideas.”
So now my wife’s ashes surround the Sugar-Maple.
Birds are stealing tiny bone-fragments, stones, to add to their nests.
My dog picks at the ashes.
My Zero-Turn lawnmower will blow her ashes all over the yard as I trim around that tree.
• Our 48-inch “zero-turn” riding-mower is a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
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| Photo by BobbaLew. |
| My wife with the Sugar-Maple when planted. (Back then its trunk was about four inches in diameter, now it’s over a foot. At that time the tree was perhaps 14 feet high, now it’s over 30.) |
My wife died Tuesday, April 17, and was cremated shortly after.
She died of cancer, a topic I blogged on this site many times. But if you need clarification, click this link, and read from the ninth paragraph down.
Her father never made completion of our house 22 years ago.
He had a stroke, an aneurysm (a burst blood-vessel in his brain), and died about a week later.
That was 1989.
Just before his stroke he gave us $500 to purchase a Sugar-Maple.
That Sugar-Maple has grown and prospered, and my wife wanted her ashes dispersed under that Sugar-Maple.
Our property is pretty much her doing, but she never requested her ashes be dispersed under that Sugar-Maple to me.
I heard that from her mother.
My wife’s mother is still alive, living independently in a retirement apartment in De Land, Fla. She’s 96, and very spry. (She takes care of so-called “old people” younger than her.)
Four were in attendance beside me.
Two were my younger brother-from-Boston and his wife.
He had bereavement-leave, as if our dispersal were a ceremony.
Another was Karin (“car-in”) Morgan, previously Karin Wahlstrom (“WALL-strum”), a friend of my wife during college.
Karin lives in the area, and is a native of the Bronx.
The fourth was Fran Swetman (“sweat-min”), the postmaster at the West Bloomfield post-office, where Fran hired my wife as a relief postmaster after my wife retired as a computer-programmer in Rochester, NY.
Fran thought the world of my wife, the best relief postmaster she ever hired.
Fran thought my wife was above-all smart, and beyond that kind and sensible. Unpretentious.
Fran and my wife became fast friends. They used to walk together in a nearby park.
I wasn’t sure I could disperse the ashes, but I did.
Karin, previously a ne’er-do-well that has since found religion, offered a prayer.
After I finished I went to Fran.
“There ya go, old buddy,” I said through tears.
“The best friend I ever had.”
“And above-all smart, and unpretentious about it,” Fran said.
With that, Fran drove back to work. She had used her lunch-hour to attend the dispersal. I was adamant she be able to attend.
“I was extremely fortunate,” I told Karin. “I got a good one; and I coulda done a lot worse.
I sure stole enough of her ideas.”
So now my wife’s ashes surround the Sugar-Maple.
Birds are stealing tiny bone-fragments, stones, to add to their nests.
My dog picks at the ashes.
My Zero-Turn lawnmower will blow her ashes all over the yard as I trim around that tree.
• Our 48-inch “zero-turn” riding-mower is a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time in half compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
posted by BobbaLew at 5:48 PM
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