It seems strange to write the LAST chapter first, but with all that has happened, it just seemed to work out that way. Today, under a steely Alaska sky, Dad, Meg, Ashlynn and I took to the waves in Lynn Canal to fulfill Judi's final wish; that her ashes be spread in the waters of the place she loved and called home.
Don and Helen Turner provided the boat, Dan and Katie Northrup and Linda Palmer and her granddaughter were on the shore nearby as we let her ashes drift on the wind and into the dark water. The tears were running freely as we each said our final silent goodbyes to beloved wife, mother, grandmother and friend. As the ashes settled and sank beneath the waves, I felt I could almost sense Judi's spirit settle in to become a part of the Alaskan beauty that even a cloudy sky couldn't dampen.
When we returned, the mail had begun to fill with cards of sympathy as news of Mom's death started to reach the many friends and family she touched. In one was a poem that had to be shared in the final chapter:
Walk Within You - Nicholas Evans, 'The Smokejumpers'
If I be the first of us to die,
let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving,
there is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
the dead live on forever in the living
and all the gathered riches of our journey
the moments shared, thy mysteries explored,
the steady layering of intimacy stored
the things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
the joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
the wordless language of look and touch,
the knowing, each giving and each taking.
These are not flowers that fade,
nor trees that fall and crumble,
nor are they stone,
for even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand,
and mighty mountain peaks in time reduced to sand.
What we were we are,
What we had we have,
A conjoined past, imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together,
and scan in vain the dappled bank besides you for my shadow,
or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land
and spotting something, reach by habit for my hand, and finding none,
feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
be still, close your eyes, breathe, listen for my footfall in your heart,
I am not gone, but merely walk within you.
It just FIT.... Goodbye Mom...
Next... We start back at the beginning...
