SHE GAVE BACK

fire, earth, & legacy

Granny has a little plot in the Ross Bay Cemetery at the edge of the ocean. Enough for us all to be carefully organized stacks of ashes. To be together, contained, forever. Granny, Grandpa and Uncle Chris have already snuggled in. The alive ones go on holidays and anniversaries, namesake days, death and birth days to garden it. The only fruits are flowers of remembrance. I’m not a grave gardener. I say this and guilt washes over me. I’m the healer of the living. I find my remembrance in the daily minutia, in dreamtime, in nature.

 I don’t think I will fit in our collective grave. I no longer want to be cremated, to be burnt. As fiery as I live, I have come to know that I did not come from fire. I came from earth, from her. Wash my naked body, wrap me in muslin cloth and lay me in the ground. No box. Please don’t box me. To be clear, I am not religious. This just feels right. Less waste, less smoke into the atmosphere. Let mud and rock and mineral take my bones back, let flesh dissolve. Let me feed the earth makers and movers. Let me give back.

 “She gave back.” That would be enough said upon my passing.

 Perhaps if they curled my pliable old bones in to a fetal position around the nest of ashy boxes I could fit into our final familial home. My mother box nestled against my heart.

 In truth, I hope to find a strong man. A brave man. A forest man who will quietly carry me to the back of our land and sing me into the soil. Plant foxgloves and alyssum, a thick barked tree seedling. Nearby carve a bench from a fallen one and carve Rumi’s words into her flesh;

 “Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.”

 And when his heart hurts he and the dog – must be a dog person – can walk to water the seeds with their salty sadness-love to help the tree grow and the blossoms open their petal lips to tell the story of spring, of birth again and again.