Maine Observer: Mom’s ashes resting in old Maine house
A mustard jar on a bedroom dresser might be just the right place for a small part of her – close to her son and his wife.
By Steven Price
My mother, who died in the spring of 2012, loved Maine, although she was born in California and lived most of her adult life in the Southwestern states. Her trips to Maine were few and far between, but always meaningful to her – a family marriage to attend, a rare chance to see her far-flung, eldest son.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Price lives and writes in Kennebunkport.
• Readers may submit original 500-word essays about Maine life via email for this column to mainevoices@pressherald.com. Submissions must include the full name, address and daytime phone number of the author.
A small part of my mother’s ashes now reside, oddly enough, in an 8-ounce Grey Poupon Dijon mustard jar that sits atop my bedroom dresser. The jar is right next to a small rock that I picked up when we spread my father’s ashes upon the ground of one of his favorite deer hunting sites in western Montana. My parents divorced when I was 7.
Most of my mother’s ashes, at her request, were tossed into the cold ocean waters that constitute the San Francisco Bay. For her, it was a kind of homecoming, a closing of her life’s circle.
This event was attended by a tight group of family members and friends, gathered together on a sailboat floating under a steel bridge.
My wife and I, on a longer trip down the California coast, took part of her ashes and deposited them under a tree on the Cal Poly university campus in San Luis Obispo (where she was born) and off the wharf in Santa Barbara (her favorite place on Earth). I hadn’t planned on keeping any, but I did, perhaps unwilling to completely part with her.
Seeing her ashes in a jar every morning and evening, I started thinking about what, exactly, I should do with them.
While Maine wasn’t the final resting place she asked for, I thought since this was a place quite special to her she’d like to be, well, part of the scene.
We have lovely gardens and landscaping in our yard, which she always appreciated. She loved the Maine woods, especially in the fall. She loved our ocean too, with its jagged, rocky coastline. I could have logically placed her remaining ashes in any of these places. But the more I thought about her, and what she did when she visited us in Maine, I came to realize that maybe she was already where she belonged.
Above all else, she loved our home, possibly the oldest house in Kennebunkport (the deed goes back to 1690), and she loved just puttering around its dark-paneled interior, drinking coffee, reading on the patio, doing her hair and makeup.
She was a homebody by nature, and the most self-sufficient person I’ve ever known. You never had to entertain my mother, she just took care herself, always happy to be her own best company.
Odd as it is to have her last remains in a mustard jar on my dresser, maybe it’s just the right place for her – close to me, my wife, and the old Maine house she loved so much. Today her ashes are still there, beside my father’s rock, close in a way they never were in life.
— Special to the Telegram
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