Where will I scatter her ashes?
By JB Hubbell
14 Aug 2009
It is difficult to imagine my mother ever being still enough to die, she is so full of energy & life.
So I force myself to think about her death, only because it seems so improbable, although logically it is inevitable.
If I don't think about it, I believe it will be too much for me to manage if it does happen.
We joke that she will outlive us all, but it isn't really a joke, I think most of us believe it to be true.
So I wonder, where will I scatter her ashes?
Certainly in the lake where we have had morning skinny dips for as long as I can remember.
Where we still dip each morning when I'm home, even into 51 degree water in late fall.
I would hope some of her ashes would wash up onto Isle la Motte where she loves to picnic & camp.
Of course on the beach by this beautiful lake, where we've spent hours talking, laughing, loving each other.
And in the kitchen where she seems to spend most of her time generously feeding her husband, her family & often it seems, half of Sunnywood.
I will hide some ashes in her secret chocolate hiding places that we all know about and often pillage.
Some has to go on the meadow so green with her love & care.
Then her garden which she tends to endlessly & joyfully, a cheerful & colorful greeting to arriving guests.
I would have to scatter some along the Sunnywood road where she walks each morning or skis whenever possible.
All around Sunnywood her ashes should go, as she's cared for so many, opening cabins, bringing food, cleaning the Big House, just being there.
More scattered along the Lake Shore Road where she rides her old red bicycle with determination & grit.
Some must go throughout the woods & fields that she's trod through in search of barberries for her amazing jelly,
Through prickers & pastures & poison ivy she wanders gathering those tiny berries, it isn't always fun.
The streets of Burlington might get a few ashes, but it has to be on New Year's Eve at 1st night in the freezing cold.
Then there is the open road, which she loves, but still never seems comfortable with, or maybe it's just her passengers that aren't!
She & my dad will travel at the drop of a hat, for graduations, births, weddings, sporting events, anything to be with & support their family & friends.
So I'll scatter her ashes from NY to Florida to California, with plenty of stops along the way.
And of course I must take some to France where we had a most special trip at her 80 mark.
Not sure I would have the energy to retrace the walk we made through Paris.
Can't forget Hong Kong at 85, must save some ashes for the Great Wall and maybe Mayo (it's really Mao) would be willing to share some space in his tomb.
I will be sure to save enough so that every person she's ever touched in her special & caring way will get to have a bit of this woman to keep by their heart,
to remind them what it is to have really lived and loved and to be loved by so many in return.
Naturally, there will be enough for each of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to have the pleasure of spreading her ashes in places that are special for them.
And there will be some left over for me to keep in a chocolate tin so I can still feel her warmth, her caring, her wisdom, her love, her mothering.
One might think there would not be enough ashes from one person to be scatter so far & wide,
But my mother is a great woman, often larger than life, there always seems to be plenty of her to go around, I know in death it will be no different.
So where will I scatter her ashes?
It is good to think about, but just an exercise in remembering.
She is still so full of life, I think I might never get to fulfill this query,
And I am very happy not to!!
Author's Note: I have been wanting to write a poem about my mother for a few weeks now & had the title Ode to a Great Woman rumbling in my head. But last night I awoke suddenly with the thought, where will I scatter her ashes? I got up & wrote it down so that I would not forget & this morning I wrote the poem.
