Our Mackinac Island Scattering

Our Mackinac Island Scattering

I am waiting for my Nashville jewelry repair to open. Two delicate opal stones fell out of a beloved vintage ring I wear with my wedding band and two stones also fell out of an opal bracelet I favor. I don’t get this way often. While I wait, under a Starbuck’s umbrella, I am treating myself to a latte, two-finger tapping into my cell phone, .

Three weeks ago, my sister and I scattered our parents’ ashes, two years delayed. From slapstick on our childhood Shaker Heights street to the poignancy of the University of Michigan Law Quad in Ann Arbor, cousin Missy reciting the mourner’s Kaddish, from the landmarks of our father’s hometown, Traverse City, Michigan, to the pebbled shore of Mackinac Island, we scattered. Sometimes tears sometime giggles and too many coincidences to be coincidental.  

My college buddy lives in Traverse City with her husband and so it was a reunion for us, too, made especially meaningful because I bonded with Clara and Charlie, her charming grandchildren. By the second day in Traverse City, recurrent back issues prevented me from walking much, but fortunately I can bicycle like a son of a bitch. And so on Mackinac, My sister and I made a bicycle beeline for Arch Rock,

[Made of Mackinac breccia limestone, a rare limestone for the Great Lakes. Within the rock? Dolomite, chert, and some shale, my brothers middle name. If they were alive I’d ask if there is a Mackinac connection. All my mother ever said was “I thought it (Shale) was pretty.” Formed 7500 years ago by wind erosion, Arch Rock rises 150 feet above the water. Though the formation is breathtaking, the rock itself is not pretty, in my opinion. Grey, carbuncly, crocodiley.] 

Of Arch Rock, Judge Advocate Samuel A. Storrow wrote, in 1817, “From the Lake it appears like a work of art, and might give birth to a thousand wild and fanciful conjectures.”

From Cleveland to Mackinac, I asked, “Was she happy here? Was she happy here?”

From our room at the Iroquois Hotel

Without talking, we leaned our bicycles against a wooden sign post and each climbed on the rock of our liking. At some point, it was just time. We opened our Zip-loc sandwich bags, used to it now, unlike the first few days of nervous chuckles.

I started with mom.

“Good bye. I think you were happy here. Yes. I think you were happy here.” 

Her ashes fogged the pebbly Straights of Mackinac shore. Ebbing. Tiding. Gently. My sister scattered our father. At first riding on top of our mother’s haze, he rode on top before they blended in to one.  We watched them for a long time.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OBBvQLoimhkrXInFICq6MiSb8WWlWc1B/view?usp=sharing

My daughter Jesse and her husband Chawne showed up for a bit. They had flown all the way from L.A.

But speaking of flying . . .

Next time.
It’ll be interesting.