Wrapped, and taped, and placed carefully in Sarah’s closet, Don’s ashes filled up the pink glass jar I bought for Sarah after her father died. I am not sure why she had them hidden away – I think a lot of people are superstitious about ashes, although I know, or I think I know, that Sarah was not among those who did.
In fact, after Don died, I went shopping with Sarah to find the perfect receptacle. We went to the Rideau Centre in Ottawa and headed for our favourite jewellery store, which at that time, I believe, was named Magpie.
Among all the pretty pieces, we found two silver lockets – one for Sarah and one for me – into which we later, tenderly, sprinkled some of Don’s ashes.
I went home and tucked mine in a dresser drawer, planning to wear the locket only on special family occasions.
Sarah went home and tucked hers in a jewellery box, planning to wear her necklace the next time she went somewhere special.
As it turns out, somewhere special for Sarah was a dance bar, which I found particularly funny given all the dancing anecdotes handed down in our family, and given her father’s Asperger’s fear of public display. (He and I used to engage in what we called ‘apartment dancing’ – but that’s as far as he would go. You should have seen him jiving in his Fruit of the Looms...very funny.)
Anyway, the day after Sarah’s outing, she called me early in the morning. She sounded shocked and amused and worried all at the same time.
I paraphrase:
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Mum,” she said, “You won’t believe this.”
“Try me,” I said.
“Well, I was out on the dance floor last night, and I had on the locket. Dad’s locket.”
“Honey, I know the one you mean.”
“Well, mum, I was dancing and I started seeing all of this stuff floating around me, like sparkly dust, flying all over the place, and I wondered what it was and I kept dancing and – Mum – it was Dad.”
“Dad?” I asked, knowing exactly what she meant.
“Mum, he was everywhere...”
“I tried for over twenty years to get your father on the dance floor and in one short night....”
I can’t remember now how long or often Sarah and I laughed over this, but it was a long time.
Tonight as I type this I am thinking, knowing, that I am going to transfer Sarah’s receptacle contents of her father into a tea tin (I have evidence of Don all over the house), and use this pink glass jar for Sarah’s remains. Her ashes will sit in my bedroom window, where I will see them everyday...in rain or in sunshine, the light reflecting...reminded of her sparkling personality, her energy, her life and her loss of life. Hiding things away doesn’t work for me, and only by facing them head on, making them a fabric of my everyday life, can I embrace what, and who, I need to.
I also remember the day our family commemorated Don...past the lighthouse, under the natural arbour, onto the Pelee Island shores of Lake Erie. We sat on a fallen log, my two sons and their partners; Sarah; Don’s son, and Mary and me...one by one, gently lifting a small palmful of ashes and carrying them to the lake.
The sun was setting, and the outline of a ship was faintly visible on the horizon. I remember a seagull fighting the wind that had picked up, his wings beating in the beautiful falling light, his streamlined body angled toward the whitecaps.
It was a memorable ceremony, quiet and lovely and reverential, just the way Don was. Just the way he would have wanted things to be...his ashes, Sarah’s ashes, in little glass receptacles about the house, reminding me, always, of what I had, what they lost, and what will never be again.
My locket – the one that holds Don’s ashes – sits in my dresser drawer. I have never worn it.
