Truths: Ashes to Ashes

Its been a long few weeks for me – weeks that I am not sure I was fully conscious enough to remember. A blur as they say…

But yesterday, well, yesterday was eye-opening to say the least. Enlightening. Breathtaking.

We spread my grandma’s ashes. Her wish was to have her ashes mixed with my grandpa’s (who died 22 years ago) and spread amongst the land they owned for nearly 60 years. (note: this is actually illegal… I am not sure where exactly it is legal to spread your ashes but according to others – it is not a widely accepted practice)

It was a very small and private affair. My mom and dad, me, and my grandma’s dear friend and caretaker, Scott. (Not to be confused with my brother, Scott – no, he has yet to even call us back since grandma passed away.)

So, my dad and I got the ashes out. I really had no experience with this – only with my pets. However, I had never spread their ashes or even really looked at them. They sit in the container they came in – on a shelf in my office.

Maybe its details you don’t need – but here they are anyway because I do think that when I get to the whole point of this story – they will matter.

My grandpa’s ashes were 4 times as many as my grandma’s… they were much bigger in size and shape – more like crushed seashells compared to my grandma’s whose were as fine as dust and much, much less in quantity.

We did our best to mix the two together and then we embarked on a journey to the property I have known my whole life.

The lilac bushes, in full bloom, where my grandma, great grandma and I would pick blooms and make fragrant bouquets for the kitchen table. The grape vines where we would smash the little fruits and stain our clothes in purple juice. The cigar tree as we called it and picked those long pods. It is a field of memories – of happy times – of innocence for me.

And as we walked, I could literally see myself at ages 5, 12, 17 – my life passing before me.

We stopped at the oak tree that my grandma specified to my mom… My mom read a passage from a blessing which was said by a minister right before she passed. My dad took some of the ashes and scattered them around the tree.

We went to the magnolia tree that my grandma had specified to Scott… this time I read a prayer and again scattered the remains of the ashes.

The wind was soft and the sun was shining and there was something unspoken in the air. My prayer was about freedom… and that my grandma was free to be with God… Someone she believed in her whole life – she was in Heaven – the place she waited to see.

But as the ashes blew in the wind and fell upon the soil – I became awestruck.

We look at people our whole lives – we judge their appearance: how they dress, how much they weigh, their flaws and maybe sometimes, their perfections…

But here I was looking at what was left of my grandma – and none of that stuff mattered – because her whole life was reduced to dust – dust that would be absorbed by the ground and all that would remain as proof of her existence was they things that she did – the love that she shared, the happiness she offered, the contributions she made.

We look at people and somehow believe that their appearance says something about them – but in the end - the one things that says anything about them – is the work of their soul and their soul can take the shape of anything…

I have truthfully never looked at life like that before.

I have never spread ashes. I have only see urns – or been to services where you see a casket and a body and it just seems like the whole person, body and all, gets laid to rest. But there really isn’t a body. It was merely just a shell – to house the soul – the soul whose job is to make a difference in some way while on this Earth.

Life becomes unfathomable when looked at in this light. It definitely gives reason to pause and re-evaluate what is important – what matters and how you judge people.

Sure we have all heard things like: “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” or “It what’s on the inside that matters.”

But until you see someone you love as only ashes in a bag do you realize that it is all true.

It also reveals that if I weigh 10 pounds more than I want, or wish that my hair was longer or my boobs bigger – I am ultimately wasting my energy because none of that matters… What matters is what I do while I am here – how I offer of myself to others, how I love and how I choose to live my life.

One day, when my ashes are spread – I can only hope that no one is saying, “If she only would have lost that 10 pounds, or let her hair grow, or had plastic surgery.”

I want them to say things like, “She loved with her whole heart, she always stopped to save a stray and she wrote that book that changed the way people saw the world – she made a difference here.”

My grandma made a difference. She taught for 50 years, hundreds of children who always remembered her. She made me laugh and loved me unconditionally. And as I watched her ashes return to Earth – She had the wisdom to teach me one last thing: Quit wasting time and go pursue your passion in life…all the other stuff really doesn’t matter.