The Last Word On Nothing

We (me, Pete, the baby) have had a wicked mystery cold going for 10 days and counting, and have reached the point where we can’t remember not being sick — have we ever gone anywhere, done anything? Adding to our dismal mood, arborists came to cut down the majestic walnut tree that has provided us with shade and comfort and more birdsongs than I bothered to count — I regret that now — for six years now. Half the tree had died from mysterious causes, leaving the whole dangerously unstable. It all feels too ominously symbolic to dwell on in this week of all weeks, so I am taking comfort where I can find it (including from Kate’s wise post last Friday). One of the things I find comforting is the good people can do when they work together toward a worthy goal, like playing a piece of music or electing a reasonable fucking person to lead the country. Anyway. This post first ran in November 2022.

My grandmother used to take me to master classes at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where young musicians came from all over the world to train. After buying our $10 tickets, we’d stand in the line of mostly senior citizens waiting for the doors to open. I’d hold her hand and rest my head on her shoulder, inhaling her Obsession perfume.

Nana’s mother didn’t let her listen to music of any kind, growing up, so as an adult she listened constantly to classical music and jazz, taught herself to play cello and taught her children and grandchildren to love music too. We usually sat in the first or second row, close enough to hear the academy students breathing and their shoes squeaking. Barely-out-of-college opera singers wiped their sweaty hands on their pants and pianists dropped their sheet music. Then the teacher would arrive, the students would pull themselves together, and they’d get to work. 

These students were very, very good. But as we listened, their instructors made small adjustments that transformed their performances from good to shiver-worthy, perfect. 

She was in the narrow shed, on a high shelf, in a cardboard box advertising Dole fresh cut salads on the side. In black Sharpie on top, the word “Judi” in my stepdad’s scrawl gave away the actual contents.

“It’s time to get Mom out of the storage facility,” I told him during a recent visit to Santa Fe. Previously, Mom’s ashes were displayed in his kitchen in a fancy green-flowered ceramic urn (which was once owned by Madeline Albright, a gift from a foreign visitor, apparently, that she wasn’t allowed to keep). But when he moved in with a new partner, it just seemed wrong to have his deceased wife on display, no matter how grand the container. Thus, the urn went into the cardboard box (packed inside a purple velvet case first—we’re not barbarians!) in the shed.

When I say “shed” I mean, yep, one of those storage units you pay monthly for, to stash old bikes and broken stereos and golf clubs and other stuff you’ll probably give or throw away later (or your kids will). Mom shared the unit with some dusty boxes of files and mementos, wooden slats from a shelving unit, a huge frame. Some other stuff was stacked in there; nothing of major consequence. Too, there was an old empty Coke can on the floor in the corner and some mouse droppings here and there. It was an A1 storage place, if you’re wondering.

Once unlocked, the accordion door to Unit 91 made a horrible shrieking sound when we pulled it up. We got the box of Mom down and brought her with us in the car. The urn held not just mom but the ashes of three pets (including her very favorite black-and-gray tiger cat, April, and weimaraner Gretel). Plus, my grandmother, it turns out! Back at the condo, in the kitchen, we lifted the urn out and unscrewed the top just to see what we were working with. No surprise, it was a series of nondescript plastic bags of ash. One wasn’t sealed quite well enough to keep from spewing just a little gray stuff from the top when we moved it around. That was weird.

The plan was to take that bag of Mom and her pets and her mother either up the mountain to among the stands of aspen trees, or over to the Botanical Gardens. Mom died in 2006 and it was long past time to spread her ashes somewhere pretty. She loved Santa Fe in all its Santa Fe glory and probably would have liked to be scattered in the main square (near where the Native Americans sell jewelry) or inside one of her favorite shops, perhaps in a dressing room. (For the record, before she was cremated, we tucked her CHICOS customer card into the coffin with her.)

But those were both terrible ideas. Especially that second one. And the Botanic Gardens, well, people might not want us doing it there, where they walk and inhale a lot. So out of town, up where the wild things grow, it would be.

Would I feel unmoored once her ashes were in the wind? Would it matter that she wasn’t all in one place, and that I didn’t have a special spot to visit in a cemetery where I’d feel her presence? I wasn’t sure. I certainly didn’t THINK so. I’m of the “back to the Earth” mindset when it comes to death. I don’t like the idea of burial, unless you intend to be unboxed tree and worm food. I’m a bit claustrophobic myself. So, this should feel good and right, to let Mom out of her confines to fly free under the Santa Fe sun.