First thing on the list was to finally bury my Aunt’s ashes at sea in Galveston. I’m sure some eyebrows raised from co-workers and funeral directors when I posted our ceremony and her final disposition on Facebook. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
I technically started my sabbatical on Sunday morning. The night before I received notice that my application to volunteer for Northwest Ministries wasn’t received, (I’ll have to find a different service project due to time restraints,) my car started making funny noises, my son was getting a fever, and perhaps the most upsetting— my husband lost a contact. Tyler has very bad eyesight and without the contact he can’t drive and it effects his equilibrium dramatically. All of this occurred the night before we take off for a quick family trip to Galveston to bury my aunt’s cremains and spend quality time together.
Despite it all, I woke up Sunday morning, read my devotional, and we persevered. The drive down to the gulf went well, and Cade was feeling better. We arrived at the dock and met the captain. Rain delayed our service for about 30 minutes. I knew we had made a good decision when the captain asked if he could start our voyage in prayer. Roughly one nautical mile out at sea, we stopped the boat and started our ceremony. (The captain will send the exact coordinates to us so we can mark the final resting place.) I opened the ceremony in prayer and then the children read their thoughts, prayers and comments they had prepared. My sister closed our ceremony with her final thoughts and prayers. We placed the biodegradable urn in the water and watched it float down and away while the sun set. It was dramatically beautiful.
Some may question why with my many years of experience in the industry, and all of our outstanding Wolfelt training, I would choose this type of service for my aunt. Even though we had the funeral home provide the cremation, we had no visitation or memorial service provided by them. This might even appear blasphemous to some. If you are still reading this you may, or may not like my rationale. I fully believe that for most situations a traditional service with body present is the most respectful, appropriate, and most importantly, HEALING type of service. And while this is true MOST of the time, like most things in life, there are exceptions.
My Aunt was near 80 when her cancer returned. She never married nor had children. She lived in California the majority of her life until my grandmother turned 100 and could not live alone. In an effort to take care of Nema, my Aunt moved back to Ohio where she spent the last several years. She developed friendships in Ohio, but due to age, many of her friends were disabled or in nursing care homes. Few of her distant relatives are left in Ohio, and they are very distant. (They are second and third cousins mostly.) My mother and father have passed away and only Nema survives on that side of the family. Nema is 105, and she doesn’t attend funerals. She did not attend my father or mother’s funeral. The only funeral I know of that she attended was her husband’s 30 years ago. (Nema tends to live in denial at times, and this coping mechanism has served her well.) In addition, and perhaps most importantly, a traditional funeral experience does not reflect the life of my aunt at all. There was nothing traditional about her. She was extraordinarily compassionate, literally brilliant (IQ around 150,) quiet, introverted, gentle, progressive, free spirited and well, different. Very different. I am thankful that in her final years she went to bible study with friends and studied Christianity. She declared herself to be Christian, and we found numerous evidence of this when cleaning up her home after her death. Declaring herself to be Christian was the only thing “traditional” about her. She loved dolphins and the ocean and always wanted a condo by the beach. My decision on her final tribute considered everything mentioned above.
As for what now? We are back from Galvez, but only for 24hours. We are traveling back to the beach to enjoy some Carpenter family fun for a few days tomorrow. Oh, and the car and the contact? We are still working on the emergency contact and the car wouldn’t replicate the noise when we brought it to the shop. Strange. And today I am working toward finding different service work since the volunteer application was not received.
Stay tuned. Who knows what will happen next…