Not Exactly a Funeral
sunrise from Humpback Rocks, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia
A few months after their mother died, his brother pulled him aside and handed him a plastic Kroger shopping bag. It was knotted at the top so he couldn’t see what was inside, but it was slightly heavy, maybe a couple of pounds, and the contents shifted around as he tried to examine it.
“What is this? Are you giving me a bag of cat litter?”
“No, it’s Mom.”
“Say what now?”
“It’s Mom. I divided up the remains so we each got a third.”
“Wait—are you saying this is a bag of cremains?? Did I know she was being cremated?”
“I don’t know. It’s what was in her will, I guess.”
“What do you even do with something like this?”
“Whatever you want?”
He didn’t want to do anything with them. He barely knew his mother. She’d left their family before he was a year old, before his brother was three, and never looked back. She married a Marine, moved to Okinawa, and had another child—a daughter this time. Clearly the boys had been superfluous, unnecessary, unwanted.
Much like these cremains.
Still, it seemed disrespectful to throw them in the trash. Mostly he didn’t want to be haunted by her angry ghost. They hadn’t had a relationship in life; he didn’t need one after her death.
What do you do with cremains, he asked Google.
Scatter them in a meaningful place, the internet replied.
How do you find a meaningful place for someone who didn’t find you meaningful?
Google didn’t know either.
He decided on Humpback Rocks, off the Blue Ridge Parkway, near where he’d grown up. He knew he’d visited with his mother there; it had been his grandparents’ favorite site for picnics. He could take the dogs and make a nice outing of it. If he timed it right, and took the quick route up, they could reach the summit just before dawn and watch the sun come up across the valley. Then he’d dump some ashes and enjoy a pleasant hike back along the AT. Maybe they’d stop in Charlottesville for breakfast on the way home.
The dogs agreed this was a brilliant plan. No notes.
At first, it seemed they’d been right. Everything went smoothly. There was no traffic at 4 a.m., so he made good time on the drive. The weather was flawless; the trail was dry and fast.
It was still mostly dark as they climbed up onto Humpback Rocks itself. They watched the light seep across the misty hills below, glowing pink and orange. A few wispy clouds overhead served as a perfect foil, reflecting and framing the sun as it peeked over the horizon.
It was obviously a perfect morning. It felt like the right time for some kind of epiphany. Surely at any moment it would suddenly hit him: oh! That’s what had happened! He’d shed a few private tears, up here alone with the dogs on this mountaintop, as he grappled with his newfound understanding of his mother and her choices.
Any. Second. Now.
The epiphany did not arrive.
After a while, he gave up on waiting for it. He opened his pack, rooted past his jacket and gear, and pulled out the Kroger bag nestled in the bottom. He took it to the edge of the rocks and tried to think of something profound to say. The dogs stood beside him, curious about this development.
Nothing came to mind.
In silence, he cut the bag open, and—holding it with a firm grip so he didn’t accidentally drop it off the mountain—tipped it over to pour the cremains out.
He had never really contemplated, before that moment, how wind behaves around a steep outcropping of rock. He hadn’t realized that as the air hits the solid wall of rock, it has nowhere else to go, so it travels straight up.
He learned this interesting new fact when, just as the cremains spilled out of the bag and down the face of the rock, a gust of wind hit, driving two pounds of ash and bone dust directly into his face, peering over the edge.
He spluttered and spat—why had his mouth been open in that moment?—and scrubbed at the grit on his face and in his hair. Looking down, he saw he was coated with fine grayish-white ash. He turned toward his dogs—a matched pair of black hounds—and discovered that they were now silvery, thoroughly dusted with white powder.
As he beat the ash off them, he started laughing, because really, what else can you do?
Almost nine years later, the epiphany showed up.
This is a true story—see the pics below!—that I changed to the third person because I knew I’d be reading it aloud in a class. I changed the gender of the narrator to avoid pronoun confusion in the paragraph about his mother leaving.
The epiphany is a much longer story. Some of you reading this will have heard it; I might write it out someday for those who haven’t.
Westley and Gillian shortly after sunrise and before being ashed. Sorry, guys.
Me with my brother—I have no memory of this, but there’s a pic, so I guess it happened.
This is one of only a few pics I have of me with my mother—and maybe the only one that includes my brother.
