My father

Yesterday morning I stood shin-deep in seawater on the beach in Milford, Connecticut, dropping fistfuls of my father’s ashes in the Sound. I watched all that’s physically left of my father wash away in the water and sand. It became suddenly clear to me that that’s all there is when a life ends, and it is very right and proper to send ashes out to become part of the natural world again. I’m not sure anymore whether an Afterlife exists, but it’s comforting to know that at least my father is being returned to the sands and the sea.

I am resting at Ara’s apartment in Baltimore today, and tomorrow I return to Chapel Hill. I have an urn with the rest of my father’s ashes with me. I will keep it until I can go back to California, to add him to the beaches there that he loved so well.