I’m in Bedford, Indiana. The craving to share our grief sent us back to our home world, rolling
hills and limestone scarps and fast food resturants. I carried Dad on
my back and enjoyed the solid weight of his ashes against the small of
my back.

We had my Dad’s memorial party on Saturday afternoon with a few remaining family members (Dad at 87 was the youngest of his family) and then yesterday, we spread his ashes in the winter landscape of his childhood, leaving a long wide circle of Dad, gray against the fresh snow.

It has been a weekend of wild emotions and I find myself even more grateful I so recently went on retreat and knowing I will need a day of rest this coming week. We’ve had revelations – Mom telling us how she and Dad meet (we always knew one of them was still married but we never knew the whole wild story!) – and reunions, with cousins and aunts and uncles we haven’t seen in years (due to ancient family feuds before my time but kept alive by mom and her sisters), the news that one aunt is fighting a serious legal battle, and my mom sleepwalking in the hall of the hotel, all this, set against the normal tension of people who are related but might never have chosen each other spending lots of time together.

And you know what? It’s all been okay, with gales of laughter and Chris’s steady presence throughout.  I’ve done my yoga practice and that’s helped. We are grieving for a good man, and knowing that has helped. We’ve let ourselves cry and cry, and that always helps.

Today, we had lunch in a Tibetan restaurant (Bloomington, where I was born, has one of the largest Tibetan populations in the US; the Dalia Lama’s brother has lived there since 1965) and there was a prayer by the D.H. on the wall by our table, and as always, his wisdom summed up how I’ve been trying (and sort of succeeding) to be with family:
                    Everyday, think as you wake up,
today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am         
                    alive, I
have a precious human life, I am not going to waste
it, I am going to use
                    all my energies to develop
myself. To expand my heart out to others, to achieve

                    enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am
going to have kind thoughts
                    towards other, I am not
going to get angry, or think badly about others. I am
                     going to benefit others as much as I can." – H. H. the
14th Dalai Lama.