HBO Blogosphere: Mom’s Ashes

20 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  Cis on May 19 at 3:06 p.m.

  my mother’s ashes are spread along the stone wall on their farm with 1/3 saved and buried with her favorite horse.

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  JeanieSpokane on May 19 at 3:19 p.m.

  I can’t begin to tell you how much ME’s post touched me.

  My Dad’s ashes are at his favorite fishing stream under a covered bridge east of Yachats, Oregon about 20 miles.

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  Pounder on May 19 at 3:41 p.m.

  We spread my Mom’s ashes at the river in Oregon that our family has been having an annual camping trip / reunion for nearly 60 years now. She went there as a kid, and now her grandkids and great grandchildren play in the same clean mountain waters. It’s consistently my favorite week of every year, and was hers also… so many great memories shared with family and friends in the same spot year after year. It was special because of the memories, but after spreading Mom’s ashes there a few years ago, and adding a few tears to the river, it holds my heart and soul. Someday I plan to have my ashes spread in the same spot,

  #

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  turbogal395 on May 19 at 3:42 p.m.

  My dad’s ashes were spread at Fort Stevens on the beach. It was one of his favorite places.

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  DFO on May 19 at 4:06 p.m.

  I’m going to ask a question that I’ve pondered for some time re: cremains that are spread in a forest or waterway or some other favorite spot. Does that act deprive survivors of a marker to visit in remembrance of the departed loved one? Are you being deprived of something as a result of the cremains spreading.

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  Kibby on May 19 at 4:11 p.m.

  Dad wanted to go to “the happy hunting grounds” and so we spread his ashes under his favorite tree overlooking a meadow in Montana that he dearly loved. The same one where he saw his first moose. Not that he did any hunting in his later years. He fell in love with the beauty of nature and lost the desire. Said the last one broke his heart. The men in the family still go there every year and set up hunting camp. They take deer and elk….but moose are off limits now. Let the old man run free, they say.

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  Pounder on May 19 at 4:16 p.m.

  … we also got my Mom a marker that was placed on my grandfather’s (her father) grave to give us a spot to visit. To me though the spot to pay respects is the river where we spread her ashes, and a young tree that we sprinkled the last of them under. I even carried buckets of water up from the river to give the tree a little extra drink when it was dry last year during our annual visit. That stretch of river bank is every bit as special to me as a grave would be, possibly even more so. It was a place she loved as much as I do, and meant more to her than some tiny grass plot on a hill in town.

  Watching a loved one die though, for me anyway… once the last breaths were gone, you could tell the body was just a vessel and no longer the person I loved. The soul lives on though, in our memories and hearts, and you can reconnect and honor them any-time anywhere by remembering them and the good times when they were here.

  #

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  Sisyphus on May 19 at 4:28 p.m.

  I don’t know about you Dave but I’ve never received much solace from visiting a piece of marble amongst so many. I can think of no better remembrance that visiting a soul fulfilling place that I visited with my loved one as Pounder describes. I find graveyards to be archaic and cold. I’m sure my mother wouldn’t want me to remember her that way.

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  Cindy_H on May 19 at 4:30 p.m.

  “Does that act deprive survivors of a marker to visit in remembrance of the departed loved one?”

  Great question with Memorial Day approaching. When my Dad died he was cremated. He told Mom just keep him in an urn somewhere. But my oldest brother hated that idea. He and his family live out of the country and he said he wanted a place to “visit” Dad when they come to town.
  He got him a place at Fairmont Memorial Park.
  At first it was nice. We’d take my mom and our boys and talk about Papa. They loved to find the flag with his name on it.
  But I’ve grown to hate the whole process and now my kids seem indifferent, too. The youngest two never even knew him.
  I don’t feel any closer to my Dad by going to a cemetery, and I think about him all year long, not only on Memorial Day.
  It just makes my Mom cry, and then we’re all sad.
  My brother’s kids have been to the cemetery only ONCE in 14 years.
  It seems more honoring of my Dad’s life to have spread his ashes in Manito Park or sprinkled them into the Spokane River from the Monroe Street Bridge. That’s where my folks did their courting.
  Now, I’m stuck going every year to a place that holds no memories of my Dad.

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  hmoffsuite on May 19 at 4:30 p.m.

  DFO >> “Does that act deprive survivors of a marker to visit in remembrance of the departed loved one?”

  I don’t think so. If one is a party to the event where the ashes were spread, the memory of that when visiting the very same place would be sufficient, I would think.

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  spokelooneh on May 19 at 4:31 p.m.

  OK, lighten up everybody.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpuMAvA8M6g

  (dubbed, even funnier. Is it Russian?)

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  Kage_Mann on May 19 at 4:32 p.m.

  I want to be buried over on Tubbs Hill.I’m not to hip on cremation, because I deserve better than that.

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  Sisyphus on May 19 at 4:44 p.m.

  STFU, Spokee. You’re out of your element. You think this is Shomer frickin Shabbos? ;-)

  Sounds Russian to me. Thanks for the levity.

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  JeanieSpokane on May 19 at 4:50 p.m.

  Neither of my parents are buried - their ashes were spread in their favorite places. I don’t go to cemeteries to “visit” - I go to the beach. Any beach. A river beach, an ocean beach, a lake beach. THE BEACH. That’s where my heart lies.

  Neither had a funeral either - and that is a whole other topic. I do feel a little unsettled, a little off kilter, in that I didn’t have a formal closure. On the other hand, my memories are never far and are always pleasant - and never of their death, but of their life.

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  Sisyphus on May 19 at 4:54 p.m.

  I think that gets to the heart of the matter Jeanie. These matters of funerals and monuments, they’re all for the living. Why should they manifest themselves into constructs that provide no solace?

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  spokelooneh on May 19 at 6:47 p.m.

  On the occasion of my father’s death, my grandmother on my father’s side INSISTED on there being a “viewing” and she originally wanted an open casket funeral, which we (EVERYBODY else in the family) had to fight hard not to have. I did not go to the “viewing” of the day before, or was it just the morning before the funeral, kinda hard to remember. My father’s body had suffered the ravages of ALS, Lou Gerig’s disease. He was a pale shadow of his former self. To me it was grotesque, the idea of an open casket. But it was HER son, predeceasing her, every parent’s worst nightmare, and one must sympathize to those feelings and wishes. But he’s DEAD, why do you have to see the dead body? Too much negativity. So that compromise was forged. And we went on. Few years later we were dealing with (the ravages of) Grandma’s Alzheimer’s disease.

  Note to everyone out there, make sure your will says what you want done when you go to the Great Reward or whatever, and tell all your loved ones as well. Could help prevent the worst kind of domestic squabbling, the fight among siblings in the event of parent death, which can be VERY ugly. Brothers and sisters shouldn’t do that.

  Remembering him in the hundreds of stills I have, and old 8mm movies, now converted to DVD. Oh, and the old cassette tapes too. I need to get those digitized.

  Didn’t want my last image of him, (no matter HOW good, Digger, you can’t make a dead person look better) than my most fondest memories.

  Both Mom and Dad were buried in the VA Cemetery (Dad was a Coastie, and spouses of veterans can be buried side-be-side in VA cemeteries.

  Have never been to visit the gravesite, might not ever go. It’s 1500 miles away. Would remind me their deaths, not their lives, and those memories are already burned into my head and far better. “It’s the laughter you will remember.”

  Any beach, said Jeanie. Indeed.

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  Me on May 19 at 6:49 p.m.

  My Dad’s ashes are in Montana in an old huntin spot - and I haven’t even been there. I do feel strange about that. I wasn’t there when my Uncle and Cousins took him there….. I can see us going back to the Ocean where Mom is for sure. And of course there are many things that will remind us of her.

  I don’t like going to cemeteries. My Sister is in the one in Post Falls and I’ve only been a couple of times. It so happens that my Mom was MAD at my Sister and I last year because she wanted to go to my Sister’s and her Brothers (in Coeur d’ Alene) during Memorial weekend and we had things going on. She said “I don’t think I’ll be here next Memorial Day and you HAVE to promise me that you will go to their graves after I’m gone” so this year, even though I don’t like going I will go for Mom…..

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  Dennis on May 19 at 7:06 p.m.

  My Dad and his Cousin virtually grew up together. And they passed within days of each other. Per their wishes, they were cremated and their ashes spread in an area they loved and hunted their entire lives.

  As much as I love the outdoors, and in particular, the area where my dad & uncle were laid to rest, I just can’t bring myself to go back to visit. I prefer to let them live on in my memory

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  Cis on May 19 at 11:29 p.m.

  Out of duty, my husband and I put flowers (live ones) on his folks and my deceased husband’s graves… out of duty is my take on it… as I have all my love ones who have passed… in my heart and soul…

  Me, I will have my ashes spread where the ocean comes and goes as it ebbs from high tide to low tide… a spot where the mountains are in view too. They can have a memorial get together if they wish.. I wish stories and laughter if they do…

  But going to a field and look at a stone is not for me. Don’t want it for my kids and family. I will be in their hearts and souls too.. or not…

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  ejs on May 20 at 8:17 a.m.

  you should all be ticketed for littering.

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