the year my father died, i graduated from whitman, took a road trip up the coast of california with my mom in a bright red convertible to try to celebrate life and then moved 3,000 miles away to alaska with people i'd never met before.
(except joel. hi joel, if you ever read this.)
i was following Jesus, and i thought he might be in alaska. i can't say i regret it, but i can't say i'd do it the same again. i would say that i'd follow Jesus wherever and however, so maybe i would do it again. hard to know, because that drive to anchorage was heart breaking. the woods and the moose and bear and alaska all looked like my father so very much. he was a hunter and a woodsman. he loved the land of the midnight sun.
on january 14th of that year, i walked deep into the woods by myself and wept and rocked myself while standing cold in the snow and talked to the trees and to my dad and told him that i would miss him forever. i walked so far off of the trail that i was sure no one could hear me, not that being near the trail would mean anyone would've heard me either. alaska is alaska...there's really no one around wherever you go.
i had a big breakfast that morning with maple syrup and pancakes, my dad's favorite since he was a new hampshirite, and then wrote him a long letter. when i headed off to the woods, i brought a framed picture of us and then put both the letter and our faces on a tall noble fir tree deep in that forest, covered in thick snow. before i walked away i dropped a rose that i bought down in town and headed back for the trail.
that was the first anniversary of his death; i remember feeling that i was leaving a huge heavy boulder of grief behind in the woods as i walked back to roads and cars and my apartment and job and life.
all the way home i looked around me in the woods and imagined my father walking along next to me, framed by a landscape that would have suited him so well.
i listened to him on a nearby hill yell across the valley to me that he loved me, he loved me.
a few years later my brother, his family, and my mom and her future husband and michael and me met in the tetons to spread my dad's ashes. i was pregnant with mozea at the time, and michael and i had made a long trip in our beat-up vanagon from portland to wyoming at the end of september, when the elk bugle, to cast my father to the wind. we spread his ashes on a hill overlooking the snake river and then poured on the ground a bottle of estes park sampson stout that he saved for a special occasion along with all of our prayers and tears. i think i sang a song, i can't remember. we were all dealing with the pain of the day in our own peculiar ways...my brother took a thousand photographs and his kids ran around and played with sticks while we spread dad's remains. my mom played a tape of elk bugling and cried desperately and i held michael's hand tight. the morning air was cold and quick, the morning air my father preferred. it was a perfect temperature for maple syrup and pancakes.
i remember everyone was being incredibly delicate with the ashes. they put on special gloves and were slow and demure as they spread them towards the snake river.
as i'm sure you can imagine, i did nothing of the sort.
i rolled up my sleeves and plunged my bare hands into my dad's remains and then closed my fists tight, as tight as i could, and held him for a long time before letting him go.
my dad's remains were sticky. they weren't like normal ash or dirt. they stayed with you.
it was windy that morning and the ashes blew all over us. it seemed like people felt kind of uncomfortable with dad blowing every-which-way, getting stuck in eyelashes and under shirt collars, but i liked having dad all over me. when no one was paying much attention, i put my hands in the urn a second time and rubbed his ashes all over my face and hair and neck and arms and then closed the lid and carried his box down the hill with me that contained the things he was carrying the morning he died (a 2$ bill, his glasses, some unopened chapstick, and a silver cross that he said he'd always have in his pocket just in case it was true).
michael and i drove to jenny lake after we watched some elk rut in the middle of a thorough fare and said goodbye to my family.
the sun was setting over the grand tetons and i caught a glimpse of myself in our vanagon's spotty side mirror. i had my father's grey remains all over me, my hair was a dingy shade and my skin and painting shirt looked silty. whenever i touched my hand to my mouth i could taste the dusty salt, my dad.
i grabbed michael's hand as we drove out of yellowstone in the late autumn light.
with my husband, our baby in my belly, and my father all over me we drove back to portland.
the year my father died i turned 21.
that year began the darkest and most desperate five years of my life.
those years ended with the birth of my daughter, mozea.
she came a few months after we gave my father to the wind.
