It has been a little over five years since my mom died and not a day goes by that I don’t think about and miss her. I remember the night she died as if it was yesterday. I walked outside in the cold winter air and looked up at the stars and thought, “right here, right now everything changes,” and nothing since then has ever been the same. You think you are ready to handle the loss of a loved one, but death is only the beginning of it. Grief has taken on so many forms and emotions since then, it surprises me every day with its power. Like the landscape around us, it twists and turns and changes shape, color and temperature. It’s raw, painful, and beautiful all at the same time. I started writing about my grief a few months after her death and it has helped me navigate the terrain. I have also enlisted the help of friends on my grief journey and have been working on a new nonfiction book. I want to tell you how it began.
So about nine months after mom died, I was still reeling from her death, the sudden death of my dad a few months earlier and a miscarriage. I had lost three people I loved and I needed a little space to deal with my grief. I felt like when my parents were alive, I was a baby bird that they sheltered and fed and molded. They were teaching me to fly and when all of this death happened, I was shoved off the cliff and it was their way of saying…"fly now my dear, we gave you wings, no don’t give up...go.” That’s exactly what I did. I needed to fly on my own both metaphorically literally. I decided to travel alone across the Atlantic Ocean to France. In August of 2014/ I decided I needed some time alone to heal and a two week yoga, meditation, and writing retreat was the answer. A thin, silver chain and tiny tear-shaped locket with mom’s ashes was secured around my neck, close to my heart.
I journeyed 3,500 from home alone, joined other women on a healing, restorative journey to find myself and I found my mother instead. I found my mother in the trees that were wide-open and full of hope. I found my mother in the wind. I heard her call to me in the laughter of little children one afternoon as I meditated in the wet, green grass. I found my mother joining me during evening yoga sessions and when I opened up my hips, and put my hand to the sky, I let grief out.
I found my mother in the photos I took throughout my journey, showing up as a beautiful purple light that swelled around my face and comforted me. I found my mother's spirit in other women on my journey who made me feel the love only women can radiate out from their souls. I found my mother on the Eiffel Tower in Paris as rain trickled out of the sky and formed goose pimples on my arms telling me I should have worn long sleeves.
I found my mother staring at me through the deep, charcoal eyes of a French horse named Romeo. I found my mother in English breakfast tea at a Café in Chantilly, France as the warm, soothing feeling washed over me when I drank it. I found my mother staring back at me when I looked in the mirror after crying and for the first time in my life, I was happy I looked like my mother. I found my mother in the brilliantly colored vocal Rooster that woke us each morning and welcomed us each night. I found my mother in the yellow and black Butterfly that floated into our writing salon, and delicately balanced on the wooden coffee table for over eight hours. And, I found my mother literally in the subway station in Paris when the locket containing her ashes fell off. After several panicked moments, I finally found her laying behind me on the ground. I found out I do not have to let her go, because she never left me.
After I found my locket and regained my composure, one of the ladies on my trip asked me later that night over dinner, what I would have done if I never found my mom’s ashes in the Paris subway station. I told her I would have had a nervous break-down first, and then accepted it. Maybe it was a sign that she wanted to stay there. She wanted to be surrounded by her French heritage, and witness the energy and beauty of Paris. Even though the energy of my mother was and is still always with me, I was not ready to give up this tiny amount of ashes. I felt ashamed in a way that I freaked out about it. I had her urn with the rest of her ashes at the top of my closet. I put her ashes in a beautiful biodegradable, pressed cotton urn with a colorful beach scene embossed on the top. I talked with mom before she died and she said I could let her ashes go in Ireland when I could afford to go. I promised her I would keep her ashes safe until I went there. We had been planning a mother/daughter trip to Ireland for my present after graduating with my master’s degree. We never got to go. Cancer robbed her of yet another thing.
I thought about this a lot over the weeks following my trip to France. I thought about all the trips my mother never got to take when she was alive, and it made me sad. She had so many adventures planned, and was just a few years away from retirement. She had traveled once with my dad for their 15th wedding anniversary. They spent a week in St. Kitts near Bermuda, and she once went on a Caribbean cruise with her Red Hat friends. That was it. 64 years of life, and two trips under her belt. My dad on the other hand, had a passport that looked like a well seasoned steamer trunk, full of stamps and stickers in every color and language. My dad was a research scientist and at one time during the late 80’s and early 90’s, a national director, who spent months at a time globe-trotting. He would be drinking steins of German beer, while my poor mother was working 50 hours a week as a Microbiologist, and literally up to her eyeballs in shit specimens. Then, she would be our taxi driver, taking us to ballet and soccer and cooking dinner. She was superwoman, but instead of a red cape, she wore a lab coat. And, dad was wearing German Lederhosen shorts with suspenders.
It didn’t seem fair that mom could not join dad on all his adventures. He got to see so many beautiful, exotic things while my mom reared her children. Dad drove 100 miles per hour on the Audubon in Germany while mom drove us in a carpool to the Science museum. Dad learned the art of Bonsai in Tokyo, Japan, and was less than twenty feet from Elephants and Lions on Safari in Cape Town, South Africa. Mom was busy sewing my yellow lion costume for my dance performance, and mowing the lawn. Dad stayed at five-star hotels, drank expensive champagne, and slept on 500-count Egyptian cotton sheets in Egypt. Dad ate the finest chocolates in Switzerland and argued with a French woman in Paris because she would not let him eat Cheesecake. She said he could only eat chocolate cake, because she did not like Americans.
One of the most memorable things my dad experienced while he traveled the globe was the night he called mom to tell her he was in a hot tub with Cher in California. I can’t remember what mom was doing at the time, probably opening a can of creamed corn and pulling out Tyson chicken fingers from the oven while looking over our homework. I do remember mom telling him “yeah right” laughing, and scrunching up her face, which was her way of facial cussing without speaking. It was true, he sat in a hot tub with Cher. I don’t know what they said to each other in that hot tub, maybe she just smiled and my dad’s head swelled to the size of a hot-air balloon. It was all he talked about for weeks as mom continued to open cans of vegetables, and make fish sticks, while dad continued to hop the pond. My hope chest is filled with Kimonos, boar skin pocket books and Egyptian hieroglyphs on papyrus paper. It’s pretty to look at, but nothing is more beautiful than the urns that hold my parent’s ashes.
Before I take my mom’s ashes to Ireland in April of this year and set her urn free into the emerald sea to say goodbye to that part of her, I wanted her to travel. I wanted her to hop ponds, get jet-lagged, dip her toes in the west coast and dangle from the Hollywood sign. I wanted her to see the world. I wanted her to taste a foreign country, feel its soil between her toes, feel the warm sun of a different time zone, and sip champagne with Robert Redford (her dream man). This was my wish.
Just after I got back from France, I decided to not hog my mom literally. She deserved to see the world and I knew I would not be able to afford to go to Ireland for a few years, so I would have time to write about grief and my ash book idea started. I started getting in contact with the people who were with me when we lost mom’s ashes the first time in France and enlist their help. My goal was to send some of mom’s ashes to as many states in the US as possible and hopefully to some other countries.
Two weeks later, I sat with a strainer in my closet sifting the bones from my mom’s ashes and then mixing ashes with colored glittered and adding then to tiny glass vials. I contacted some friends and explained what I was doing and strangely no one was too disturbed with my idea and came on board.
All participants/friends and fellow writers that agreed to take part were to be mailed a small glass vial of my mom’s ashes. The ashes were mixed with colorful glitter and tied with a charm. Each person selected a location of their choice (some will be given suggestions) and either spread her ashes or buried the vial. They were required to take either take a photograph of themselves with the ashes while letting them go, or of the location the ashes were spread. They emailed me photos of the experience and if they wanted and were encouraged to talk about how they deal with grief. Many of the writers and participants have met my mother, or are connected with me in the writing world. They are my friends and some of them have also lost someone they loved.
In the past 4 1/2 years, my mom has gone to so many beautiful places I never would have imagined she . She has circled the globe from South Korea, Japan, China, the Philippines, to Budapest, Prague, Thailand, India, Egypt, South America, Antarctica, New Zealand and every place in between including dozens of states in the US. My book, The Landscape of Memory showcases how the terrain of grief changes and how each of us deals with grief and its many facets. Grief is a journey that no one has to go on alone. Grief has it’s own landscape and has it’s own story to tell. I want to tell you the stories of the places mom has gone and share inspirational stories of contributors who have lost mothers, brothers, children, loved ones and some who have almost taken their lives because of grief.Over the next few months, I want to showcase some of the locations mom’s ashes have been and share some encouraging stories that will be included in my book. Follow my blog and let’s go on an adventure. Let’s start flying!
Here is a sneak peek of location 1- Orme Rock Whales
Sometimes it feels flat in the palm of your hand, a smooth, rounded pebble from a mountain stream. Sometimes it’s a jagged sedimentary rock filled with years of build-up and it’s so brittle it breaks off in your hand, large chunks first that fall apart like sand between your fingers. The memories spilling out. Other times, grief is a large quiet rock, a coastline’s barrier rising out from the sea like the Great Orme Rock in Whales, rounded on sides, it’s wide birth a bounty being battered with cold, gray waves. I feel like grief is a rock because it has many stages and takes a long time to form. Time will age it’s appearance.
Sometimes we have to be a rock too when it comes to grief. For me, it was one of the first stages I went through. At first, I was in shock, but realized I had to write my mom’s obituary, plan her funeral, select her church music, order prayer cards, frame photos for a memorial table and so on. I was so busy trying to make everything special for mom’s funeral, I didn’t have time to initially grieve her like I needed. I walked around in a fog, making the motions but not diving into grief’s abysses. I was the flat rock, cold and hard.
After the funeral when I finally got home, my rock exterior finally started to break away and I cried for days after that, sometimes my eyes swelled shut. Death was only the beginning. But it was not the end. Mom had a journey to go on. I was going to make sure she did.
One of the woman I met on my trip to France was a young woman named Janet. She lived in South Carolina, just a state below from me. She had recently lost her father and was also dealing with her own grief trying to find a way to navigate through it. I remember thinking I was running away from my grief to France and when I went there, the women I met were dealing with the same thing. We ran away and toward the same thing at the same time. Funny how things happen that way. I believe I was meant to go to France, to meet new beautiful friends, to see grief from someone else's point of view. To see it from another angle.
Janet was in the process of renovating a property in Llandudno, Whales and had planned trips there over the course of a few years to turn the large house into a holiday rental. She said she would be happy to help take moms ashes on her journey. Just a few short months after I started my ash project in summer of 2015, Janet sent me the beautiful pictures of mom’s ashes at the Great Orme Rock which is a large limestone healdland that juts out into the northern sea in Whales. The rock is referred to as “Cyngreawdr Fynydd” by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr. Its English name derives from the Old Norse word for sea serpent. It may have been named that because sailors when approaching the large rock jutting up from the sea said it looked like a serpent. It rises up 679 feet from the sea with cool gray limestones. Janet took a walk that day and took the cable car/tram to the top and tried to find a location that would allow for wide views below. It took her about three hours round trip to take her walk that beautiful day during the summer of 2015.
I'm so grateful to have met Janet. She is kind, funny, and it was great fun getting to know her. I am forever grateful to her and all of the people who were willing to help me with this project and open up about how grief changed their own landscapes. For Janet, grief sometimes grabs a hold and changes colors. “Someone recently described our heart being like a circle. Grief colors everything when it happens. We build a bigger circle around it and that includes a lot of light. Grief hits again and again, colors everything, until we grow that circle yet again. I liked that explanation.” Janet says. What a wonderful way to think of grief and its many circles and colors. Grief can help you grow and not shrink into yourself. It can be a smooth, flat, or a jagged rock like a serpent. It can be whatever you need it to be.
