Ashes, black powder, Mariana Trench

[Adley]

It’s been a rollercoaster. I didn’t find this board till after I remarried and divorced. Apparently widowers are more likely to seek remarriage quickly. That was a mistake on my part, but this board and everyone on it picked me up at my lowest point. Thank you all.

   I’d just like to unload to you all, the folks who get it. I’ve been in Guam for a month now (I’m 4+ years in) and my children will be here ithis weekend; they’ve had an extra long vacation with grandparents this summer while I got the logistics of living here planned. Looks like this is a long term project. I don’t know the wisdom of this choice. I’m pretty sure we’ll stay here a year, with the option to stay much longer. I’ve got an apartment right next to the school and a little island car and have found the fishing and snorkeling holes and hiking trails we’ll be frequenting...and I wonder if I’ve lost my freaking mind!!!  Ha

    This is doable, but it’s gonna be tough.

I brought Jessica’s ashes.....I’d planned last year to start traveling again and put a pinch of them in all the prettiest places in the world. When we went to New Mexico last year I forgot them at home at four in the morning. I had intended to leave some in Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon, the Rio Grande. Now I’ve got them and it did occur to me that the Mariana Trench is only two hundred miles from here. I could send for her headstone of Massachusetts granite that I hauled the eighteen hundred miles to Louisiana and had it carved and left it by the barn near the pear trees under which we married. Damn I’m crying so hard right now. I was thinking of sending the ashes and the stone into that seven mile hole. I threw her flowers overboard between New Bedford and Martha’s Vineyard, at a little spot with a strong northeast current that ultimately leads around the globe. Now, if I drop her stone and ashes in the deepest hole in the world, we would be rotating in near perpetuity around the same nucleus no matter where we travel. Im a little freaked out by that notion and haven’t even considered the ramifications of that amount of closure. That’s not even the right word.

    She got me a couple of fine black powder revolvers that I haven’t shot since she got sick. Must be five years now. I brought them and now can’t find any powder on the island, although hunting with a muzzle loader is a thing here. 

     I know this is a weird vent, I just had to let it go...

[Leadfeather]

This is the place to let go, be weird. I like the idea of leaving the ashes in the ocean especially if you will be near the water often. The whole of the ocean becomes a memorial to her. I am doing the same thing in Lake Michigan. My late wife loved the Lake and I already think of her when I see it so it just seems appropriate to rent a sail boat and release her ashes to the waters on a hot summer day with the sun bright and high in a cloudless blue sky.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Leadfeather

[sudnlysngl]

Not weird at all Adley. I had just bought my husband a black powder muzzle loader less than a year before he got sick and he died 9 months later, and I have now been recently divorced as of tomorrow 5 months from a mistake I made too!

So glad you found us! Although I was here on the old forum before and left when they moved to here and then I found them again. It has now been 11 yrs for me, but still feels like last week sometimes as I still feel like I'm still finding my footing.

I too have my dh's ashes with me, but I have a double urn. Promised to be put in there with him, and our daughter said she would have us buried at that point, so not scattering right now, except for my thoughts, lol....

Best of luck to ya!

[Adley]

Thank y’all!

[Toosoon2.0]

I don't think its weird at all.  I have been dragging me feet regarding the ashes (5.5 years here).  I spread some off the jetty at "our" beach in New Jersey but it was too soon and turned out to be traumatic.  My husband gave me a nearly impossible list of places to scatter his ashes when he was in late stages of brain cancer (ie. not thinking clearly).  I've been to two of those places - one of them more than once - and didn't bring the ashes.  He asked for some of them to be scattered in the Ganges but I just don't see that happening anytime soon....But lately, I have been thinking it is time to do something.    I'm happily remarried and my husband adopted our daughter; at some point we may sell this house (the only house my daughter remembers and the place that ties her to her birth father) and move.  To leave this one thing unresolved any longer is starting to feel wrong.  I've been thinking about finding a time to fly to San Francisco alone and scatter his ashes in the Bay.  If my husband loved one thing in the world more than his daughter, it was San Francisco where he went to grad school and lived for years before I came along.  Its all overwhelming - even to this day.  I feel for you.  I hope your decision to move to Guam turns out to be a happy one - it sounds divine!   In February, from here in southeastern PA, I will definitely be jealous!  

[Adley]

@Leadfeather, that seems like a good idea...and I’m glad for the weirdo affirmation:) 

Sudnlysngl, I know about the scattered thoughts! I really have no idea what to do with them!

TooSoon2.0, while she was alive and even years after I could never have considered selling our place...but I find myself considering it now. 

   Life is going well enough, I suppose...

 

Here is is a strange thing occurring to me as I wake up this morning.

   To make it short I never lived in a box; really Jessica provided the only boundaries I ever heeded. After losing her, I made all sorts of boundaries for myself. The kids were so young, I couldn’t travel and work realistically. I had neither the inclination nor the ability to explore new opportunities. Once I had traveled and explored opportunity with vigor and optimism.

  Now they are all in school, I have time freed up for my career, job options everywhere, and she’s not here to discuss and weigh things together. Those imaginary boundaries I drew have evaporated. Probably so did the vigor and optimism. It leaves me free and empty. It’s a new overwhelming.

4am thoughts, thanks for letting me write...