Mom's burial at sea
Janne and I were talking about mom's burial at sea and why I thought she was angry about it. It got me to thinking about her, and between that and what is going on with Tess, I am feeling rather pensive and subdued. Fortified by a few ounces of Bowmore scotch, I think I'll write about her and my trip to Hawaii for her funeral.
My mother was a force of nature. I didn't know her well, but I know from childhood memories and her friends that she was very strong-willed, fiery tempered, changeable as the sea, and sometimes as emotionally remote as the Antarctic. She left when I was nine, and I did not see her again until I was 18. When I saw her again, I was not shy about letting her know that I was upset with her for leaving my sisters and me with Dad, because, well, so many awful things happened. As I got to know her a little better, I understood why she had left us, and was grateful. She suffered, I think, from some sort of mental illness originating with her identity crisis over bring adopted, and this oddness about her pervaded her entire life. Her lover, Judy, told me that Mom had fascinated her because being with her was like being with a different person every day, and she kept hoping she'd discover the real woman behind the facades. She never did.
When Mom died Sept 7, 2001, I knew that we were supposed to put her ashes in the caldera of the volcano she lived near, Mona Kea. I knew, not because it was a wish she had expressed, but because it was so obvious as to make stating it unnecessary...what else does one who with the remains of someone who worshipped Pele and had an affinity for volcanos? Tammy, Tess and I planned to fly to Hawaii to pack up her place and handle arrangments, but Sept 11th happened. Tess husband didn't want her flying... so she didn't come with us, and it cost so much to keep mom's body refrigerated that we had her cremated and her lover, Judy, held the ashes until we arrived in Hilo 10 days after her death.
Tammy and I drove to Judy's place in the jungle. Bamboo orchids grew like weeds along the sides of the heavily-rutted road, out near the volcano, where there was no electricity or running water but what people supplied for themselves. It doesn't make sense to invest in infrastructure that is going to be obliterated by a lava flow. We pulled up into her drive and began running the obstacle course that was the path to her 'house'. We stumbled into a clearing of sorts, and there was Judy's place, a little compound of huts really, all inter-connected by raised walkways, like tree-houses. It was surrounded by jungle in more colours of green than I had ever seen in one place in my life, and there were flowers of all sorts, fruit-bearing trees, and stalks of marijuana hanging out to dry. It was paradise, and I knew without being told that mom had loved it there.
It was very hard on Tammy to be there, because she remembered mom in that place. We returned to the driveway and to mom's car, which was packed with the personal things that Judy and the others had collected from her apartment in Mountain View. And there, Tammy cried. I tried to hold her, and di, but after a while but she waved me away, asking me to go and leave her alone for a while, that she needed it. And so Judy and I walked back into the jungle, accompanied by the sounds of Tammy's grief, more mournful and hair-raising than wolves houlwing at night. I have never heard such sounds in my life, such heart-wrenching mournful cries, coming from so deep down inside her that the sound carried to us 1/4 of a mile away as Judy and I sat on the porch and looked at each other with tears standing in our eyes. The memory of it is so vivid and disturbing that it still brings tears to my eyes
Friends of mom and Judy eventually arrived, and one, whose name escapes me right now, but whom I want to call Kirsten, took a liking to me. She does bodywork--massage and acupuncture mainly--and she used to treat mom's emphysema. She was quite lovely, with her wavy blonde hair and hazel eyes and long legs. She kept touching my hair and hands and face, and from her touch I knew her to be very much like me: both empathetic and carnal in nature. When it grew late, she offered to let me sleep at her place, saying the drive to the hotel in Hilo was so far away. I declined, and she extended her offer again, more firmly, leaving me in no doubt of the comfort she was offering. I looked desperately at Tammy for help, and I could tell by her expression that she was very amused... She later told me that she had decided not to warn me that the fact that I was my mother's daughter and that I wasn't averse to women was of huge interest in the rather insular lesbian community my mother had been a part of. I felt like I had been thrown to the wolves, and indeed, I had been. I was fresh meat, and Kirsten was definately interested in having a piece of me.
Mom's friends expected me to be someone different. They had met Tammy and Tess a few times, but not me. I know Judy was nervous when she met me...she later said she'd expected me to be more high-strung and judgemental, rather than relaxed and accepting. I told her that Mom's expectations got in the way of her understanding me and the reasons why I stopped talking to her 5 years previous, and since she was dead, it was too late to start talking about it now. In that moment, she saw that hard and unyielding side of me that my mother spoke of, that same side she had. I have inherited her mellifluous voice, her dark-brown eyes, and her warm, soothing presence, but I also have her emotional 'off' switch, that dispassionate coldness that keeps people at arm's length whenever I flip it.
But back to the story of her funeral... They bought and made all sorts of leis. Judy gave me one made of cigar flowers, which I had never seen before. She told me that mom had loved them because they were her favorite colour. In that moment, I realized just how much I did not know about her -- until that day I'd had no idea that orange was her favorite colour.
We arranged to caravan up the mountain and dispose of mom's ashes in the volcano, but there was a lava flow across the road. I just couldn't put the ashes there, so far from the point of origin, so far from the caldera. So we turned back, and on the way, discussed other options. Judy said that mom had a favorite place overlooking the sea, and that we could dump her ashes there. So we drove to a park that was wooded rather than jungle. A path lead to large flat-topped stone outcroppings, and Judy pointed out the place where mom used to stretch out and worship the sun.
The group of us worked our way to mom's spot and stood there for a long moment. It was a beautiful clear day on this, the wet side of the island. The wind skirled about, played with our hair and the flowers, and the photos we had brought to remind us of what she had looked like. And so it began, and people shared memories of mom, some funny, some poignant. When it was my turn, I could only say that I wished I had known her as her friends knew her, and that I regretted that she had died a stranger to me, and then I tossed my lei and watched it spin into the air and fall gracefully into the ocean.
When everyone finished speaking, we waited just a short while for the wind to change, and Judy opened the box, pouring mom's ashes into the water. No sooner had she done so than this huge wave slapped the outcropping and sent spray into the air, drenching me and Tammy and Judy, but me worst of all. I stood there and laughed. I laughed because some part of me considered it a cosmic joke. I stood there, covered in saltwater and my mother's ashes, just hours before I was due to fly back home, knowing my mother had gotten the last word in. I heard it loudly and clearly: "You should have returned me to Pele's womb."
And that is why I think my mother was angry about her burial at sea.
My mother was a force of nature. I didn't know her well, but I know from childhood memories and her friends that she was very strong-willed, fiery tempered, changeable as the sea, and sometimes as emotionally remote as the Antarctic. She left when I was nine, and I did not see her again until I was 18. When I saw her again, I was not shy about letting her know that I was upset with her for leaving my sisters and me with Dad, because, well, so many awful things happened. As I got to know her a little better, I understood why she had left us, and was grateful. She suffered, I think, from some sort of mental illness originating with her identity crisis over bring adopted, and this oddness about her pervaded her entire life. Her lover, Judy, told me that Mom had fascinated her because being with her was like being with a different person every day, and she kept hoping she'd discover the real woman behind the facades. She never did.
When Mom died Sept 7, 2001, I knew that we were supposed to put her ashes in the caldera of the volcano she lived near, Mona Kea. I knew, not because it was a wish she had expressed, but because it was so obvious as to make stating it unnecessary...what else does one who with the remains of someone who worshipped Pele and had an affinity for volcanos? Tammy, Tess and I planned to fly to Hawaii to pack up her place and handle arrangments, but Sept 11th happened. Tess husband didn't want her flying... so she didn't come with us, and it cost so much to keep mom's body refrigerated that we had her cremated and her lover, Judy, held the ashes until we arrived in Hilo 10 days after her death.
Tammy and I drove to Judy's place in the jungle. Bamboo orchids grew like weeds along the sides of the heavily-rutted road, out near the volcano, where there was no electricity or running water but what people supplied for themselves. It doesn't make sense to invest in infrastructure that is going to be obliterated by a lava flow. We pulled up into her drive and began running the obstacle course that was the path to her 'house'. We stumbled into a clearing of sorts, and there was Judy's place, a little compound of huts really, all inter-connected by raised walkways, like tree-houses. It was surrounded by jungle in more colours of green than I had ever seen in one place in my life, and there were flowers of all sorts, fruit-bearing trees, and stalks of marijuana hanging out to dry. It was paradise, and I knew without being told that mom had loved it there.
It was very hard on Tammy to be there, because she remembered mom in that place. We returned to the driveway and to mom's car, which was packed with the personal things that Judy and the others had collected from her apartment in Mountain View. And there, Tammy cried. I tried to hold her, and di, but after a while but she waved me away, asking me to go and leave her alone for a while, that she needed it. And so Judy and I walked back into the jungle, accompanied by the sounds of Tammy's grief, more mournful and hair-raising than wolves houlwing at night. I have never heard such sounds in my life, such heart-wrenching mournful cries, coming from so deep down inside her that the sound carried to us 1/4 of a mile away as Judy and I sat on the porch and looked at each other with tears standing in our eyes. The memory of it is so vivid and disturbing that it still brings tears to my eyes
Friends of mom and Judy eventually arrived, and one, whose name escapes me right now, but whom I want to call Kirsten, took a liking to me. She does bodywork--massage and acupuncture mainly--and she used to treat mom's emphysema. She was quite lovely, with her wavy blonde hair and hazel eyes and long legs. She kept touching my hair and hands and face, and from her touch I knew her to be very much like me: both empathetic and carnal in nature. When it grew late, she offered to let me sleep at her place, saying the drive to the hotel in Hilo was so far away. I declined, and she extended her offer again, more firmly, leaving me in no doubt of the comfort she was offering. I looked desperately at Tammy for help, and I could tell by her expression that she was very amused... She later told me that she had decided not to warn me that the fact that I was my mother's daughter and that I wasn't averse to women was of huge interest in the rather insular lesbian community my mother had been a part of. I felt like I had been thrown to the wolves, and indeed, I had been. I was fresh meat, and Kirsten was definately interested in having a piece of me.
Mom's friends expected me to be someone different. They had met Tammy and Tess a few times, but not me. I know Judy was nervous when she met me...she later said she'd expected me to be more high-strung and judgemental, rather than relaxed and accepting. I told her that Mom's expectations got in the way of her understanding me and the reasons why I stopped talking to her 5 years previous, and since she was dead, it was too late to start talking about it now. In that moment, she saw that hard and unyielding side of me that my mother spoke of, that same side she had. I have inherited her mellifluous voice, her dark-brown eyes, and her warm, soothing presence, but I also have her emotional 'off' switch, that dispassionate coldness that keeps people at arm's length whenever I flip it.
But back to the story of her funeral... They bought and made all sorts of leis. Judy gave me one made of cigar flowers, which I had never seen before. She told me that mom had loved them because they were her favorite colour. In that moment, I realized just how much I did not know about her -- until that day I'd had no idea that orange was her favorite colour.
We arranged to caravan up the mountain and dispose of mom's ashes in the volcano, but there was a lava flow across the road. I just couldn't put the ashes there, so far from the point of origin, so far from the caldera. So we turned back, and on the way, discussed other options. Judy said that mom had a favorite place overlooking the sea, and that we could dump her ashes there. So we drove to a park that was wooded rather than jungle. A path lead to large flat-topped stone outcroppings, and Judy pointed out the place where mom used to stretch out and worship the sun.
The group of us worked our way to mom's spot and stood there for a long moment. It was a beautiful clear day on this, the wet side of the island. The wind skirled about, played with our hair and the flowers, and the photos we had brought to remind us of what she had looked like. And so it began, and people shared memories of mom, some funny, some poignant. When it was my turn, I could only say that I wished I had known her as her friends knew her, and that I regretted that she had died a stranger to me, and then I tossed my lei and watched it spin into the air and fall gracefully into the ocean.
When everyone finished speaking, we waited just a short while for the wind to change, and Judy opened the box, pouring mom's ashes into the water. No sooner had she done so than this huge wave slapped the outcropping and sent spray into the air, drenching me and Tammy and Judy, but me worst of all. I stood there and laughed. I laughed because some part of me considered it a cosmic joke. I stood there, covered in saltwater and my mother's ashes, just hours before I was due to fly back home, knowing my mother had gotten the last word in. I heard it loudly and clearly: "You should have returned me to Pele's womb."
And that is why I think my mother was angry about her burial at sea.
posted by KR | 2/05/2005 07:53:00 AM
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