Saturday 3 December 2016
Over the last 18 months, I have scattered Chris’s ashes in many parts of the world: Crete, Italy, Africa, United States, Mexico, Ireland and some special places in the UK. Today is the second anniversary of her death and time to complete my long peregrination by laying the last of her remains to rest in Kingscote, the village she called home for 20 years.
Friends come to call: Miche and Flora for breakfast; Ben Bennett our ex-neighbour for a cup of coffee; Carole and David for tea and cake. During the day, we visit Chris’s memorial and peek under Sassy Bear’s winter covers; mix some ashes into the earth beneath the stone Buddha in the garden at Folly Cottage; and place the remainder into the heart of a hollow tree in Kingscote Woods by the light of a crescent moon.
Among her ashes, deep in the soil, I bury a fire opal that I’d brought back specially from my trip to Mexico in June. It’s said that the Romans believed opals to be the most precious of all gemstones because they contain the colours of all the others and that the Bedouin used to think that they contained lightning and fell from the sky during thunderstorms. I want Chris to have some of that opaline fire to keep her warm in the cold, cold earth.
As I say farewell to her material form for the last time, I feel a deep sense of peace and satisfaction. I remember a much-loved volume of poetry by Rolf Jacobsen called The Roads Have Come To An End Now and the thought comes into my mind with a smile that though this road now is ending, the journey of my life is not yet done.
Coming Home to Story 
What a lovely way of saying goodbye … I was impressed at the manner in which you travelled to all the favourite places of Chris to Scatter her ashes. What an amazing way of honouring the one you loved. I wish you material closure as you continue to live your beautiful life. The world is waiting Geoff while the Chris’s energy mixes with the energy of Lord Buddha.
Thank you Ranjan