Beautiful Stones!

It's sometimes unsettling and feels unfair that the world keeps going about its business after the tremendous loss of someone you love. When my mom passed in March, spring was just beginning to bloom and it felt almost cruel that such beauty would happen without my mom to see it. Seasons still change, people still move on the Earth, and life goes on around you while you are just blown apart inside. I woke up on my birthday with a heavy heart because birthdays are one of those things that still come, too. I had only been up for a couple of hours when I got a call from the funeral home that my mom's remains were ready to be picked up. I'll never doubt that she had a hand in the timing of that call. What better birthday gift could have landed in my lap that day?

My mom had pre-paid all of her funeral expenses and had planned to be cremated like my dad 34 years earlier. At the funeral home, they offered another option of turning the cremated remains into "parting stones", stones that you can hold and distribute as you think is fitting. Miles and I not only chose to do that with my mom, but we also brought the cremated remains of my dad to be done as well. They both came out extremely nice, my dad a brilliant white color and my mom a speckled blue like little bird eggs, which I know would have tickled her to no end. Miles and I placed one of each in the Japanese vase that had been holding my dad all these years and we put one of each in my mom's favorite spot, in her patio planter. We have many ideas for the rest, but as of now, they reside together at the house they both loved more than any other, which has and will always be the family home where all the grandchildren gather for good meals, Murder In The Dark games, ghost stories (and sightings), cousin quizzes, and relaxed togetherness.