I put on a clean shirt and manicured my nails with a small sewing scissors. Later, I reached into a plastic bag for a handful of grandpa's ashes, walked out to the end of the dock, and sowed the ashes across the lake's surface. The whole family did likewise while small children rambunctiously played nearby. Grandpa would have loved it.
Congregated by the lake, we shared memories. I mentioned how happy grandpa had been to give me a bearskin for my twelfth birthday. At that age, I was obsessed with living history. The fur trade era in particular. Grandpa always encouraged this interest, as he did any interest in history or other cultures. He himself was a lifelong student of petroglyphs. He could talk about rock art for days.
This was a solemn occasion. It was also deeply meaningful. Scattering those ashes brought the family together in an important and timeless way. The rain that had been falling in that remote northern Minnesota forest stopped so we could do our thing. And saying a final goodbye to our fallen family patriarch only served to strengthen the sense that he would always be with us.
Death is always a hard thing. But my grandfather's passing came at the end of a long and rich life. He died after a rapid health decline in early 2020, just before covid hit. Seeing him in the facility where he spent his final days might not have been possible if the timing had been just a little different.
The trip up north with my dad and two uncles made for a long day. But it was a good one. We met a score of relatives in Duluth for lunch, including several of my cousins' kids, then convoyed to the property my grandpa spent his life improving with other members of his church. I got to hear some new stories about our family's history and walk through a forest I played in as a child. The moment was steeped in nostalgia.
In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of death. Oftentimes this has seemed senseless. Accidents. Suicides. The disastrous effects of drug or alcohol addiction. Much of this death has felt tragic. But death isn't inherently tragic. It's a natural and beautiful part of life that we all eventually experience. Like birth, death binds us together in a common circumstance. A common mystery.
Forty years ago, my grandpa bought the house where I've lived since 2009. My dad and his brothers own the place now and we're all sort of figuring out how to live together while meeting everybody's needs. This house is a part of my grandfather's legacy. But it's not the most important part. The most important part of his legacy is love for family. And our ongoing involvement in each others' lives is a testament to this legacy.
Our culture isn't great at handling death. Yet the pandemic is forcing us to recon with it in new ways. I'm lucky to have a family that has a healthy relationship with death. Scattering grandpa's ashes yesterday was a good reminder of that.
Feature image from Pixabay
