“Grant that these ashes, the dust of once-joyful palms, may remind us of our mortality…”
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. And many times over the past few decades I have observed the day by imposing a sign of a cross onto countless foreheads and hands, using “the dust of once-joyful palms,” — ashes, that were the remnant of the previous year’s Palm Sunday palms, now incinerated.
And the words above were part of the blessing I would offer as I did so.
Having not grown up in the church, it wasn’t until some time in my young adult years that I learned what Ash Wednesday was about, or Lent for that matter. In fact, the only thing I knew as a youth to associate with Lent was the fact that the McDonald’s in my hometown used to have their Filet-o-Fish® sandwiches on sale every Friday until Easter.
I found that to be strange… took advantage of the discount… and then thought no more about it.
My family claimed Catholicism as their faith tradition, though never attended mass. So I didn’t have the opportunity to learn much about something that my family was not observing.
And it wasn’t until I fell into the church in my young adult years that Ash Wednesday became part of my vocabulary… and my traditions.
I shared a quick note on social media yesterday that read: “For the record… this year I didn’t need Ash Wednesday to remind me about mortality.”
I don’t need any additional reminders that life is frail and that we are all going to die. Because, I have that constant reminder on the bedside table next to what was Peter’s side of the bed… and technically, still is.
That’s where his urn resides… filled with “the dust of my once-joyful husband.”
Wow! Don’t those words pack a punch?!
To be honest, until Peter died I rarely thought about death… at least not my own. Sure, I occasionally worried about Peter and the frailty of his heart. I just never thought that his mortality was going to be something that would rock my world as it did.
And now that death has descended upon our home, upon our lives… I’m reminded of it daily.
Some have asked me along the way what it is I plan to do with Peter’s cremains. And the answer to that hauntingly morbid question is; “I don’t know.”
I’ve named how the funeral home gave me a bag of “excess cremains” that wouldn’t fit into Peter’s urn. Some of them have been divided up among family members in smaller, keepsake vessels.
The rest? Well… I’ve thought of distributing them among the flower beds we have at the house in Maine.
Peter was always so attentive to those beds. He’d notice every sign of new life, each plant that had spread to occupy more space since the previous year. He found great delight in the beauty that those areas of our yard provided. It seems kind of perfect to think of a bit of him being mixed into the soil that nurtures that beauty.
[Well… what would be “perfect” would be Peter still here with me and me not contemplating what to do with his ashes.]
A couple years ago, Peter decided to add to the blooming gardens in the backyard of the lake house by building a raised circular bed around the tree that stands tall in the center of the yard. And having watched a previous neighbor tend to an overflowing mound of beautify Impatients around a tree on their property, Peter wanted to have the same. And they were stunningly beautiful!
And now that I will be the one planting the Impatients, maybe I’ll sprinkle some of his ashes there as well… mixing them into the soil with the very hands that long to once more hold the man that I so dearly love and so deeply miss.
I could sprinkle some along the fence line where the hostas and ferns grow tall. Some in front of the deck where a few bushes continue to stretch to meet the sun. And perhaps even a bit in the lake itself.
That home… that yard… that lake… all meant so much to Peter. So it does seem fitting that he, in a way could now become part of them.
But my original response to the curiosity of others still remains.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I don’t know if I will have the strength to let go of some of him.
I don’t know if I would be able to look at the lake, the flowers, the yard and not melt once again into a puddle of my former, happier self.
I don’t know if I could stand the thought of leaving him there if the day ever comes that the house is no longer ours.
I don’t know if I could manage to sleep at night knowing that what was left of the man I love is no longer there on the bedside table.
I don’t know.
And I don’t have to know. At least not now, not yet.
Because it will be some time before the soil is free enough from its winter covering and deep frost.
It will be some time before new sprouts and new leaves begin to emerge.
It will be some time before the trays of pink and white and red Impatients make their way from the nursery to my car.
It will be some time before I’m ready, I’m sure.
Before I’m ready to create even more reminders of what was… a once-joyful life now returned to the ashes from which it came.
