I woke my guys up at 530am, we had breakfast and were out the door for 7am. We drove to Mount Rainier National Park. When my Dad described where he wanted his ashes scattered, he said "somewhere in the Cascades...with water and a view of the mountains". I'd researched a ton of places. I decided on Rainier because it's not horribly far from home so I can go visit when I need to. I came across a few photos of the Bench/Snow Lake trail and I KNEW this was the spot he was describing.
The hike wasn't long but it had some very nice climbs and elevation gain. The views were spectacular. We hiked to each of the vistas to make sure the spot I had chosen felt right. We saw some breathtaking sights including a marmot whom my son named "Harold".
After we previewed all our options, I decided that my original inclination was the best choice so we hiked back there. My son helped me read this---
In the freedom of wind and sunshine
We let you go
In the dance of the stars and the planets
We let you go
Into the wind's breath and the hands of the star makers
We let you go
We love you, we miss you and we want you to be happy
Go safely, go dancing, go running home
We started tossing out handfuls of ashes. The first several times the wind blew them RIGHT BACK IN OUR FACES!!! I said "Geez thanks Dad!!" and we could all totally hear him laughing he ass off.
We finished up and headed back to the car. We ate lunch, explored for a while, took a little jog and headed back home.
I don't know how I feel right now truthfully. It was an honor for my Pops to ask me to take him on his last roadtrip. The finality of completing this journey is something I'm not sure how to process. I'm numb and heavy hearted right now. I'm angry and sad that I can't call him! I want to have a REAL chat with him one more time. That's all I've got right now. I'm going to pour myself a gangster sized glass of wine and think about life/love/death/family for a while. I'm not sure if this was appropriate to share or not but I needed to blog about it to think everything over.
