Farewell-ing

Today we had a service for someone who said often and emphatically, ” I don’t want a service.” It’s not like we could have mis-interpreted– she said quite clearly that she wanted her ashes to be scattered at her parent’s graves in Montana without fuss, without bother.

But we simply couldn’t do that. We couldn’t help ourselves.

We came together and assembled a chorus to talk about how much she had meant to us, how wise she was, how good she was, how much she was missed.

And oh my, if you were listening, you could hear her say, “Whatever are they doing? I told them no fuss, no bother!”

A life well-lived exacts a toll. It leaves a wide swath of memories and experiences which are not easily exorcised from the people you leave behind. So we toast, we remember, we re-tell our stories — and, we finally let you go.