Dad's Travels

When my Dad died he left instructions, cremation, no service, no fuss. no muss. He's been gone for 15 years this last February. My thought about him is he's looking down on us and saying "Ye Gods and little fish hooks," a favorite of his when women were present, and by now must be laughing his fanny off at us as am I. Well, we had him cremated. My sister Pam was in charge as the executrix of his will and who lovingly cared for him and organized the rest of us to doing the same.  She picked up his ashes and we, as we all knew we unfaithfully would, then organized a "dinner" in his favorite Chinese restaurant in Portland.  He had refused to have a gathering when Mom died so we did it for both them. It turned out to be quite a do. The owners of the restaurant attended. Lots of relatives and cousins and friends with lots of stories of them both. I'm sure he was shaking his "head" by then.

After Mom died Dad had rented a small plane and flew us out over the coast of Oregon where he and Mom had honeymooned and spread her ashes there. Some us thought we do something similar with Dad but in a boat.  Pam took Dad's ashes home and put them on a shelf next to the ashes of her cat (oh, oh) who had died some years back.

Intermittently we tried to organize ourselves to leave Dad's ashes where Mom's were or at one of his many favorite fishing spots on our Washington and Oregon rivers. He was a master steelhead fisherman, rarely skunked. But, Pam couldn't agree; she wasn't ready to part with his ashes yet. So we waited. Fourteen years. Most of us just forgot about it then Pam said "go." A couple of us couldn't travel at the time and said "just do it." She didn't. My youngest son who is heir to his grandfather's fishing talents offered to take over and much to my amazement Pam agreed, Susan agreed, Grace agreed.  Susan came to visit and brought Dad along with her to my house.  Progress, maybe.




So Dad is residing at youngest son's house as of yesterday. He is a very low maintenance guest. Which is what I said when I texted Heather his wife and my only "daughter." I asked her to pick "Dad in a can" up when she came to get her kids. She thinks I'm funny, so do I. Like Dad, we are mostly a pragmatic family. I hadn't told the eleven year-olds what that package in the hallway was, they were quite surprised when Heather and I told them it was their great-granddad's ashes. We explained they were only ashes not him. He's in heaven laughing at his daughters.