I Asked My Aunt to Paint a Rock

It’s funny how sitting for hours, in a metal box with wings, can make one feel as if they’re everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It’s funny how much time it gives to think about everything and nothing, and how memories of the past and plans for the future intersect somewhere in the ether above the clouds.

As the Boeing 737 made its final approach into St. John’s and broke through the cloud cover, I felt the tears I’d been fighting finally break through my resistance, landing on my cheeks as the wheels touched down on the tarmac. For the first time in my sixty-plus years on earth, my feet would meet the ground of my hometown without my mother being there to greet me.

It was to be the fulfillment of a journey I, and my brothers, had embarked upon; and the fulfillment of a promise made to our mother. It was a promise she had me repeat over and over in the last few months of her life - a vow to take her home, to have her ashes buried in the soil of the land she loved. It was a conversation my brothers, their partners and I had engaged in several times since her passing, knowing we would go together when the time was right.

Mom was born and raised in St. John’s, and spent most of her years living there, on the rocky shores of Newfoundland. She decided to leave only later in life to be near her children, two of whom had been living in Toronto for a decade or more. Mom spent her last twenty years in Ontario, making numerous trips back home to visit family, or out west to see her son.

Then something changed - she developed a sudden and indomitable fear of flying.

I have authored several poems/stories in the past referencing my mother’s struggle with dementia. I am convinced that it was likely the cause of her fear or at least elevated it. This was a woman who loved to fly. She visited us in Toronto every year before she decided to move here. She took numerous trips to BC to visit my brother. She took a trip to Florida. Then suddenly, she refused to fly. She was unable to travel home, or to BC in the last few years of her life due to that overwhelming fear.

Responsibilities and obligations always exist, even in grief. My brother and his partner, who had flown into Ontario from the west coast for our mother’s memorial service, had to get back to their home. My brother and his wife, who live near me, in Toronto, had to plan vacation time off work. The trip to Newfoundland, which would also serve as a family reunion of sorts, was one we did not want to do in sadness. That was agreed upon by all. We decided to wait until we knew we were ready.

Eleven months after her death, four months since the flights were booked, the time had finally arrived. With my brother and sister-in-law sitting beside me on the plane, I stared out the window at the pouring rain as we taxied toward the gate, and I couldn’t help but smile.

We made it. Our other brother and his partner would join us in a couple of days, then we would set about the task of honouring our mother’s wishes.

My brother is the caretaker of our Mom's ashes. We had a conversation about her wish to be buried in Newfoundland and decided that we would grant that wish, but since none of her children or grandchildren live there anymore, we would keep the main urn here.

It is currently sitting on the mantle above my brother’s fireplace. When we travelled, we took several smaller urns with us, and when our other brother arrived from BC, we set about completing our mother’s request.

The plan was to bury some of her ashes in the graveyard with her parents and with our father. The rest, we would take home. Home, to the house she was born in. Home, to the house she was raised in. We would take her to that special place that several generations of our family also consider home, as much as if we were born there ourselves.

It’s my uncle’s place now. We requested his blessing to sprinkle Mom’s ashes in the garden and he was happy to agree. I asked my aunt to paint a rock to mark the spot – not so much as a grave marker, more like a protective blanket. Something pretty, something we know mom would have loved. My aunt chose wildflowers. I think it was an excellent choice.

The garden, which I hadn’t seen in thirty years, seemed much smaller than I remember. As I looked around, I was filled with a sense of nostalgia, and maybe of touch of melancholy for what was once there and what is now gone. Thankfully, memories can be timeless.

I couldn’t help but smile as my eyes traveled to the corner of the old fence, under the tree, where I used to dig in dirt making mud cakes, and mud casseroles and pies and whatever else my wee imagination conjured up. Needless to say, my grandmother wasn’t impressed with my culinary skills.

On the other side of the garden, where the plum tree used to be, I thought of the days when we used to jump or climb the fence to reach the ripest fruits, and how sweet they were.

I remembered the clothesline my nan had stretched from the house to the back fence, and how we used to swing on it. Needless to say, Nan wasn’t impressed with that either, especially when her clean laundry was hanging out to dry.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little when I thought of the tree stump that used to be at the top of the garden, and how Nan stood in the doorway one day calling my cousin Danny’s name over and over, thinking it was him. It’s pretty ironic, I think, that the cousin who, at well over six feet, turned out to be biggest of all of us, got saddled with the nickname “Stump.” All because of grandma’s failing eyesight. God rest her soul.

We stood in the garden, chatting for a few minutes, then my uncle picked up a shovel and began to dig a hole at the base of the old maple tree; the tree I’m sure each and every one of us had climbed or swung from the branches of at some point in our childhood.

Then we sprinkled our mother/sister’s ashes and mixed them with the soil - the soil she would have crawled through before she could walk, the soil she sat in before she could crawl. The one place she could truly call home.

There she lay, and there she will stay. My mom’s soul was ignited in the house at the front of that garden, and sparks of that soul will remain there forever. Mixed with the soil, nourishing new growth, giving new life. Season after season. Lifetime after lifetime. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

When my uncle and brothers finished mixing the ashes into the soil, we planted a small bouquet of flowers and placed the stone my aunt had painted. I said a silent prayer, hummed a few bars of Amazing Grace, and handed my phone to my sister-in-law to take a picture. I couldn't help but smile.

We did it, Mama. We brought you home. I pray that somewhere, you’re smiling too.