The Ministry of Happiness

Saying goodbye doesn’t mean anything. It’s the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it. ~ Trey Parker

Happy Final Chapter

My other passed away in December, she had always said she didn’t want a fuss made, she especially hated funerals. In her will she made her wishes very specific, she wanted to be cremated, immediately and to have her ashes spread on Stellwagen Bank off of Cape Cod, or on Haleakala in Hawaii. Of course the first is a National Marine Sanctuary and the second is a National Park, so we did our best to meet her wishes and this week my brother, sister and I, as well as two of my sister’s children went to Cape Cod to bury my mother’s ashes at sea.

My mother loved Cape Cod and it was a place of many memories for us. We vacationed there many times while growing up, my mother and younger brother camped there many times. My mother loved going up to Provincetown and going on whale watches, it was certainly where I caught my love of doing the same. Last week my sister and nephew did a whale watch and had a really munificent day seeing over thirty Humpback whales in a bit of feeding frenzy.

The next day we rolled up to Chatham and a boat we chartered through Down Cape Charters. They have a nice little package where they take you out off of shore, by law three miles from shore, they handle all of the required paperwork and do a ceremony for burying the ashes at sea. It was a very respectful ceremony, we spread rose petals across the the ocean and laid mom’s remains to rest on the water. As they sunk, the traditional eight bells were rung on the boat’s bell, end of watch.

We were fortunate to have ok weather, we missed the storms that came in by a few hours, and aside from some wind and minor swells it was a really pretty day. The location we chose, since Stellwagen Bank really wasn’t an option, we chose to be due east of the Chatham Lighthouse, mom had a thing for lighthouses, so we figured Cape Cod’s most famous lighthouse was a good choice and a nice point of remembrance anytime we’re on the cape.

It was a good few days on the cape, honestly my brother and sister and I rarely are together for more than a few hours anymore. It was good to be together for a couple of days, have some fun, eat some good food and share stories about our lives and childhoods with my niece and nephew.

It was also a final farewell to my mother. To say she was a complicated creature would be an understatement, to say we had a complicated relationship even more so. But the one thing I’ve always said, and the reason my mother never wanted for anything, was that if it wasn’t for her I would not have the life I have, same for my brother and sister. She was a single mom, she kept us taken care of and provided for under some really hard conditions and always had a focus on us getting an education. That feistiness, that determination gave us the foundation we all needed to succeed and for that all of us have always been incredibly grateful, rest well mother.