In May 1992 my father and I went to visit my brother on the occasion of the birth of his daughter. I was given the box containing our mother's ashes, why I do not know but my brother was clearly uncomfortable having them in his house and had been procrastinating their scattering. I put the ashes in my bedroom. For some reason this did not feel morbid but it did feel as though Mom was there with me. I found this comforting, perhaps because I had a positive and healthy attitude towards death and dying.
As time drew on I felt that it would soon be necessary to scatter my mother's ashes. I often held the box in my lap, or shook the contents. It sounded rather like the contents for a jigsaw puzzle. I began to draw, nothing special, just vibrantly colourful abstract renderings with coloured felt pens. They seemed beautiful and to somehow work artistically. I tried to enlist my brother and my maternal uncle to help me scatter Mom's ashes over the waters of the Salish Sea (or, the Strait of Georgia) in respect of her wishes. Both vacillated and made excuses.
Labour Day I went on a BC Ferry bound for Nanaimo I made my way outside to the stern, undetected, opened the box, then took out the plastic bag full of my mother's ashes. I opened the bag and held it aloft over the ocean. The velocity of the wind sucked the ashes with a fierce rapidity unexpected and I felt a strange, delirious and joyous release. On the boat going back I ran into a man near my age whom first had befriended me when I lived at Dilaram, fourteen years ago, when I was a tender twenty-two. Our lives had taken quite distinct directions. He was a stage director and producer. When he learned of the purpose of my trip he was immediately concerned and sympathetic for my wellbeing, which I found touching but not really necessary. It was largely through his accidental agency that I was kicked out of Dilaram. It was he who invited me for a daytrip with him up to Whistler, which became Dan Gardener's available excuse (the charge being insubordination) for getting rid of me fast, that same night I returned.
Life went on an usual. At the house the old ladies and I prayed together, discussed things, fought. I worked taking care of AIDS sufferers until my supervisors decided to demote me since I had not the financial resources for the further training they had just made obligatory. I hung out in the West End and downtown, with the old ladies and by myself, being present for the local people whom one by one were dropping dead from AIDS, suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses, homicide...It was a very dark time. In the midst of the darkness I saw threads of silver and gold that I clung on to, knowing that I would eventually return to the glorious light that had already become darkness for me.
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