Remembering my uncle Anthony

This past weekend, I went down to Monterey Bay, CA to go out on a boat into open waters where we spread the ashes of my favorite uncle, my mom's kid brother who was born about ten years after she was.

He died pre-pandemic of an aggressive cancer that took him much too quickly, but I got the chance to visit him every few weeks in his last few months. Even though it's been a few years since his passing and his funeral, it takes time to get proper clearances to be able to do such a thing legally and to rent an entire boat for 22 people and go out and spread ashes. I found the whole trip offered some nice closure on my memories of him.

I was kind of amazed by the industry around such things. His wife had a floating, weighted receptacle designed to submerge itself after a minute or so of floating and it worked exactly as described. I thought there would be an awkward disintegration on the surface but it plunged below intact.

His wife offered each person present a little bag of Anthony's ashes to spread wherever we felt most appropriate, so I selected a spot under a tree at my house where I keep my Leopold Bench (first thing I built entirely by myself as an adult over 20 years ago, and a great first DIY project I would suggest to anyone, especially those with their first house). It's a calm, chill spot out by our chicken coop and I'll think of him the next time I take a break there.