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"Carolina
Ashes"
Randy Burns
March 28, 2002
"Carolina Ashes"
I spoke with my younger sister Sue this evening. We talked about the Easter Weekend coming. Our talk did not involve a holiday celebration, or a joyous family reunion. We'll be meeting to spread the ashes of our mother who recently passed. Mom lived in Myrtle Beach with my older sister (by a mile) Barbara, and it's there her life ended.
So, Mary Fogarty Burns, currently resides in an urn, or death-condo, on my sister Barbara's shelf. Barbara says she'll miss her after we spread the ashes over the ocean, in the same place we dunked our father. Mom always swore that she'd swim hard until she caught up with him. Having that attitude, while death shared a bed with her, was a very cool thing. She was a cool person, ya'll, really cool.
As Sue and I continued talking, we wondered what would happen if we didn't toss mom in the ocean. If my sister Barbara just kept her on the shelf. That wouldn't be so weird. Mom in the urn, on the shelf, in sister Barbara's living room. Unique situations could arise when I came to visit.
Say Barbara had a friend over. Now let's say that friend swore. I don't care if he only swore once, the opportunity opens. I'm an odd person in ways. The situation would scream to me, beg me, and I would become helpless in my manner.
Then, to that heathen I would say, "I wish you wouldn't talk like that in front of my mother." I'd point out the urn to him, with eyes squinted and my head nodding up and down slowly. That would work. You bet your ass it would work!
People are funny about death because death isn't funny. Those are the rules. Birth is joyous, death-dark and cold. Then you add the weight of sadness from the passing.
Still, some heathens dance when they bury their loved ones, as some will swear in the presence of my mother, in the urn on the shelf, in my sister Barbara's living room.
So it's five miles out to sea we'll go, for whatever the end game means.
Damn the senseless urns, the ashes and the oceans. Not one grips meaning in me. I think of her as life itself, giving and accepting, so that I might experience it all. ~
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