Monday, September 16, 2019

Ashes to Ashes

Mom died in 2004. Dad died in 2017. Only today, in the wilderness above Lake Tahoe that they both so loved, were their ashes given back to the earth. 










For many years during our youth, we spent a week each summer at the City of Berkeley Family Camp on Echo Lake, in the mountains high above Lake Tahoe. This, we thought, would be a good place to scatter Mom and Dad’s ashes. 

What we didn’t expect was the first snowstorm of the season  - in September! How apropos! Mom and Dad loved to ski and spent years on the Ski Patrol at Heavenly Valley and Shaw Valley ski resorts. In fact, Mom and her dear friend Toni were the first two women ski patrol members at Squaw in the early 60s, breaking the glass ceiling for all the women who followed them. Of course it would snow today, as we bequeathed them back to the land they loved so much! 



By the time we got back to Meeks Bay, where we’re gathered for our second annual sibling weekend (unfortunately without Stephan, who had to bow out at the last minute), the sun was out again and Lake Tahoe was shining in all her glory. 





Mom and Dad fell in love with the Sierras, and especially Lake Tahoe and the mountain lakes around it, because it reminded them of the Alps in their home country of Germany, from where the emigrated in 1953. 

I hope that, in some way, they are back home today. 

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6 comments:

Jenn said...

Love this!❤Beautiful tribute to your Mom and Dad ❤ What a gorgeous place!

Tonya said...

Beautiful! Absolutely perfect. My story of tossing my mom's ashes into the waves at Camano Island is NOT like this serenity at all. I still shudder at the memory. (I'll tell you about it sometime).

Anonymous said...

What a perfect place and time for you all to send them back to the beginning so they can remake themselves again! I’m so glad you had this time together especially with the perfect weather. Glad you also got to see a little bit of some of the family too. Blessings on Edith and Thomas’ lives and their legacy. Love

Margaret said...

A wonderful and meaningful pilgrimage and a bit of closure, I hope. Glad you got to spend the time with your family, and share these precious but painful moments.

Stephan said...

Thank you, Carol, and Christopher and Michael, for closing the circle for our dear Mom and Dad. They are one again. I now have a final memory of their reunion with Nature and each other. ��
I regret that the timing didn’t work with my new job.
Love,
Stephan

Goofball said...

Big hug for you all on this beautiful symbolic but probably highly emotional weekend.

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