When my sister was cremated, her ashes got divided in four: two small urns, that reside with our parents and her partner, and two small “scattering tubes,” which we planned to take to her two favorite places, in two separate states, one after each celebration of life we would hold.
Three days after the first celebration, we piled into a car together and made the three-hour road trip. We went to the coastal town she lived for two and a half years while she went to culinary school and did her externship. The oceanside place where she truly blossomed into an adult, shined in her chosen career path, and spent time at her favorite place—the seaside. I had only been there once, for her graduation in 2014. This would be just one of many, many people, places, and things I didn’t truly know because I had built myself a far-flung life abroad.
We stopped at her all-time favorite restaurant, a sushi joint. We made sure to enjoy her favorite roll. I brought the ashes in their tube in my bag. I couldn’t leave her in the car. When I picked up the tube, I was surprised by the heft of the ashes that represented a quarter of her physical body. I had a backpack purse, so I decided I was giving her a piggy back ride that day. I hadn’t given her a piggy back ride since we were children.
We then went to the first of her two favorite parts of the coastline. I had come here with her and our parents when she graduated. The four of us walked the length of the beach. Her partner told some stories about the many trips the two of them had taken out here. We eventually picked a place where we would spread half the ashes. Until this point, I had felt heavy but wasn’t specifically sad. But the moment the tube was open and I watched them hit the water and quickly fade into nothingness in sea, I started sobbing. It was too perfect of a visual metaphor—there and then suddenly gone. We all stood there for a while in silence, regarding the waves and the endless horizon. A heavy fog rolled in as we made our way back to the car.
The four of us then drove a couple miles up the coastline to my sister’s all-time favorite place, a rocky state park area that had a lot of wildlife, too. I had never been there, and that realization struck me hard. As I have done many, many times since her death, I fantasized about standing there with her, letting her show me this beautiful place, instead of being there for the first time to let a literal part of her go. We sat at a lookout for a while. Because I had looked through many of her photos, including photos from this period of her life, I recognized these rocky formations, despite never having been there myself. I knew I stood where she had once stood, because the angles lined up. Her partner found the perfect moment to spread the rest of the ashes when no one else was around. I did not cry this time. Once again, fog began to roll in after we spread her ashes. This isn’t uncommon on the coast, but I think we all also wanted to find meaning in it. Grief does that. We spent as long as we could justify at that location, too, before we had to start the three-hour trip back.
I had hoped to feel some greater sense of peace or finality after this step. I don’t. I still feel sad, unsettled. But I do feel like I now have two concrete places to go be, every chance I get to visit our home state, and sit with my sister. So that’s something, right?
Unmoored Sister 