Birthday Gift

Me, Sally and Mark on a hot summer day in 1968.
As usual, he was bugging the hell out of us.

I spread my brother’s ashes today. It was his birthday and seemed fitting to do it on this day. My final gift to him. Holding the ashes of what remained of his physical body was a very powerful act for me. I found myself in touch with Mark in a sad and beautiful way, and in touch with my own feelings, as the ashes floated down the creek. Standing on that rock, I found myself thinking back to those hot summer days we spent there as kids … jumping into the cool waters below, swimming around and splashing each other … and climbing back up the path to do it again (and again). And then, exhausted, lying on the sun-warmed stones to dry off.

Sal, me, and my dad ... Mark must have taken this one ♥

Goodbye, brother.

And the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Ecclesiastes 12:7