Dear Humans of Amazing Capacity,
Here’s an un-beautiful admission: I once thought people who kept urns with the ashes of their loved ones in their homes, especially in plain view were a bit nutty, to say the least. And now I join this community of nutters, and I’m all in. Except, I don’t yet have a proper urn, and the ashes of which I speak are in my office, with me. Dad is now my co-worker and I’m loving every second of it.
In this photo, Dad’s temporary housing looks like a stereo speaker which is perfect for my music-loving audiophile father.
Days after my Dad’s ashes arrived at my address, my mom made it clear she wasn’t ready to deal with this new representation of her late husband. No problem. I was more than delighted to host Dad for a while. I figured our family would eventually gather to celebrate his life and general awesomeness, and scatter his remains.
After a recent post about receiving my Dad’s ashes, a new friend, journalist and recently published author Erika Bolstad (buy her book!) emailed to offer a wooden box made by her artist dad to use as an urn. (Life has so many surprising twists, turns and generosities!)
I needed to think about this. Was I going to be an urn owner? Was this weird?
As it turned out, my mom, a typically unsentimental woman, made her intentions clear: after she “croaks” (her words), her ashes and her husband’s are to be co-mingled and planted under a rose bush. “Great idea!” I said, cheering her on. “So you’re staying,” I said to Dad.
So I could be an urn owner.
This week two things happened:
I got rid of about 15 notebooks from the past ten years, something I’d been wanting to do for a while. They contained writing and notes, and all kinds of precious information that I’d never look at again, so the hell with them! I was getting bogged down in all my notebooks. Last year I bought four, for four different categories of creative work and DON’T DO THAT. I felt pulled in so many directions by those whispering siren-song-y notebooks.
One of these discarded notebooks had a cover so exquisite—a bright orange fox— it seduced me into bringing her home from Colorado. I was happy to be rid of the pages but the cover? Nooooo! At first I considered framing it, but a very crafty idea came to me. I tore off the cover and put it against Dad’s “speaker.” A perfect fit for his temporary home.
Look at how this gorgeous little plant is leaning away from the window’s natural light and into Dad. Smart plant. Still not sure of plant’s name. Nice plant.
Check this out! The next day, Nice Plant was leaning in even closer to the Dad’s temporary housing. It warmed my heart. Dad loved the natural world. Not in an outdoorsman-y, granola nut kind of way; but as someone who went to the opera and symphony, and took walks marveling at plants and bird sounds and the like. He once drove through the Loire Valley countryside, swooning, “So bucolic. Such beauty.” God how I lucked out in the Daughter With Great Dads Department.
Foxy is a temporary fix of an “urn” for now. But I do like turning around and seeing Dad as this sweet little Fox. This fox is not like my dad at all, and yet this fox facade is a tender—playful even— suggestion of how we all might transform endlessly in all kinds of beautiful and unexpected ways after we leave this life; how we can continue to transform and live on in the minds and imaginations of the ones we leave behind.
P.S. Dad and I would like you all to read these two new books by amazing journalists, thinkers, explorers and humans:
Windfall, by Erika Bostad
At Home on an Unruly Planet, by Madeline Ostrander