Memorial Weekend- The scattering of ashes

On July 31st, 2009 we held a ceremony to scatter my dad’s ashes at sea. Well, maybe “ceremony” is too formal a word…what we did was celebrate my dad’s love of the ocean by taking his ashes off shore to a place we felt was significant for him and scattered his ashes while telling stories of my dad’s fishing trips and anecdotes of times spent on or near the ocean. One of the truly tremendous things for me was so sit on this boat and spend the time with my only son, who enjoyed the time on the water and found out how wonderful time at sea can be and came to understand why “Grandpa” would love it so much.
The ceremony was simple- just a prayer and a thank you for a dad who worked hard and spent time with us doing things like fishing. My brother and I scattered the ashes, then we all tossed flowers into the ocean around the spot.
A special Thank You goes to Eric Meins for taking us out on his boat and providing the flowers we scattered with the ashes. He was a tremendous help to us and a blessing at this most difficult time…
Due to limited space, we only had 6 people on the boat: Eric the captain of the boat, myself, my brother Dave, my wife Brenda, my son Daniel, and our long time friend Carmen, whose mom was friends with my mom and whose brother played baseball with me for years.
It was a terrific time and I cannot express how wonderful it was. We even had a pod of porpoises swim in front of the boat on the way back in from the scattering! It was awesome!