Mom's Requiem

"Smiling with the mouth of an ocean
and I wave to you
with the arms of a mountain...
I see you.."-Faith No More

We stood in the outback of the Sahel, near the ruins of Waldorf. The sky was blue and the sun was shinning. Breezes tickled the angel feathers in my c'boy hat.

And I said;

"Well, here we all are, and it only took us eight months and eleven days to get here...

Here is a place we have been coming to for a very long time. This is where we'd come to hike and explore. A place to picnic. Here is one of the places we'd come to watch the Rocky Mountain aspens turn the colors of precious jewels, spun gold, and flames.

And this place is sacred. Just look around you and take it all in. This is the type of place, which, in the past, might have been called one of Nature's Cathedrals.

We all are vividly aware of why we're here. It's getting on two years ago that Mom said she wanted what was left her shell to placed here. Eight months and eleven days after her passing, we come to make good on that request.

It is here that we'll witness an act of rebirth and immortality. Mom left us back in January, costing us a wife, a sister, a mother, and grandmother. Yet, she has continued to exist in the memories we have of her and the stories we share. As we scatter her ashes, she will be becoming one with these very mountains that surround us. These mountains have stood for millions of years. Upon the scale of worlds, few things are older. On a cosmic scale, perhaps only the stars themselves.

This is her monument. Whenever any of us look in the direction of these mountains, we'll see her. In that regard, she'll outlive us all."

Like at my grandmother's funeral, my father wept. Good or ill, for him, I kept my eyes dry. It was a good day to let go.

...I promise you, mother, someday I too will properly weep for you. I do not know when that day will be, but your phantasm will be the first to know...





So it goes...

Om mani padme hum...