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Memorial at Sea with Amazing Grace — Fourth Quarter Begins pg282–283
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
That fine, sunny Saturday we cruised out of the Sausalito dock on the Memorials at Sea trawler. All our parent’s friends had already passed over, so it was a small group of us.
My sister and brother, his wife and her son were on board, along with Ruth. Ruth had been our parent’s devoted and extraordinarily patient caregiver for many years. She was thrilled to have a rare day off so she could come with us. A pair of pelicans circled the boat, while two dolphins rode the bow wave to escort us out the Golden Gate. The sound system was superb and the music haunting. We released both cans of ash to merge with rose petals and the bouquets in the Pacific Ocean. The wreaths floated freely next to each other as the incoming tide swept them back under the bridge together. Looking up at the orange-red span I realized it was sixty years almost to the day that Joan and Roy had driven over the Golden Gate Bridge on their honeymoon to San Francisco. — From Chapter 15
This was the painting I did the day after my parent’s memorial service. Years before dementia turned her brain to bread pudding, my mother expressed a wish that her and my father’s ashes be scattered together at sea. The cathedral of Neptune was the perfect venue to honor…