feminine feminist

Ashes to ashes

Today we laid the ashes of my Canadian uncle to rest at the foot of the Mourne mountains. The sun shone intermittently, the wind blew, and with gentle words, a minister who had never met him, nieces and nephews who barely knew him, and sisters, brothers, his wife and son said goodbye to the man they loved. It was a mark in the sand, a holding, treasuring moment in blustery Northern Ireland to a man who loved this place but who left it. And there have been many like him, who have packed their bags and gone elsewhere. Heavens, I think about it often. But for all of that, this was home. He wanted some of his ashes in Canada, and some here, in the Emerald Isle.

As we stood huddled together, family brought together by death, quietly reciting the Lord's Prayer it reminded me, in the midst of my adult-escent hope for immortality, that to dust I, like all of us, will return. A sombering thought for a Wednesday morning, but nonetheless a thought....

posted by Feminine Feminist @ 9:11 PM