Ashes to Ashes

Letting go.

November 12th - my mum and dad’s anniversary. Today it would be 66 years. They liked number 66 - it was their house number and neither of them would ever have wanted to leave that house. We kept mum in it right until the last after dad had gone, though it half killed us. Looking back, the time had come when she couldn’t stay in it any more and she bowed out. A couple of mornings after she died, the internal burglar alarm was triggered off by two orbs circulating in the air. I went round to check it out and found no spiders, no flies. I have video of it. It goes on for an hour, those lights strong enough to keep setting off the alarm. It happened again on the morning of her funeral and then never again. My Other Half, who is about as un-woo woo as you can get, said ‘Your mam and dad have gone back home’ and yes, it did bring me comfort because I couldn’t explain it. My latest book was partly inspired by this, by what comes after. Working through it, I came to the conclusion that what we can’t explain, we should take in as it is without fighting it, without battling it or attempting to rationalise what cannot be rationalised: ‘accept the mystery’.

They were together for 60 years. We had the big anniversary day, the telegram from the Queen arrived and that was the cherry on the cake of a day for mum - god she loved the Queen so much. I’m sure mum believed that the Queen stuck the stamp on the envelope herself. That card never left the sideboard, I have it still in my treasure box. We had the cake, we had the family, the friends… we had the Chinese takeaway as they wanted and my biggest regret was going posh and not getting it from the one around the corner because dad didn’t enjoy his prawn curry as much as he usually did. I’ve beat myself up for that ever since despite my best intentions. Never try to improve on someone’s idea of perfection for them: hard lesson learned.

We had the day thank god we had it, despite dad being a bit sniffly. He wasn’t well the next day and the day after I had to take him to hospital and he never came out. That lovely memory-making day with us altogether sustained mum afterwards right to the end. But I lost her two years ago. Dad’s ashes were waiting for her to join them. I remember bringing them home from the funeral parlour, together in a sprinkling carton, putting them on the front seat and fastening the seatbelt around them in as I always leaned over and fastened them in in person. My heart broke again at that.

I always knew where I wanted them to go. Some to stay with me, some blowing around their beloved home garden, some to go to Spain so I could imagine them in the sun where they were so happy for so many years (our friend took them in a small box and let them go at the end of the week after she’d given them a tour of all their favourite places)… but most of them to go to Scarborough where they were happy, where they went for fish and chips when they had met at Butlins in Filey working in the summer of 1959. It was love at first sight - they were married five months later (I came along five years later in case you were wondering). They honeymooned there in the glory days of Scarborough.

It was THE day to let them go on what would have been their 65th wedding anniversary last year. I had a romantic vision of scattering them off a cliff, letting the wind take them where it would. The weather was perfect for a breezy lift, putting it mildly. It was probably a force ten, wet, wild. But it had to be done that day. I needed to let them go.

There was no cliff. Well there was, but there was no sea below and I didn’t want to scatter them to end up in someone’s sandwiches who might just be picnicking below because us British picnic at any time of year - have sandwiches, will picnic even if our egg mayo is in danger of blowing off the butter.

We took the dog with us who loves water and my dad loved my dogs so he had to be part of the proceedings. At least one of us would be happy to be covered in sand and drenched to the bone as it turned out. He was like a pig in muck.

So without a participating cliff, it had to be the sea. Mum and dad loved the sea, the beach. The tide was in and rough and the sprinkle carton with two people in it weighed a ton. Then I had a sudden panic because mum wasn’t a great swimmer. I had a stern word with myself - she’d be fine. She wouldn’t need her bright orange water wings today (she wasn’t much younger than me when she got her 10 yards certificate at the baths). I climbed down the stone steps to get to the water although the water seemed over-keen to meet me coming. And I really mean over-keen. It greeted me like an old friend - or enemy it wanted to exterminate - I wasn’t quite sure which.

I tried to distribute as I had envisaged but it was hard and the wind changed and I ended up getting a faceful of ashes and loads of them welded to my damp jeans. I toppled forward and cursed myself for not wearing my wellies. All that was missing from the scene was Benny Hill. ‘Luckily’ a massive wave crashed into me and washed my jeans clean. Unluckily, it saturated my best walking boots and everything else upto my chest and nearly carried me off. The OH stepped in, completed the task but he also got drenched up to his thighs, his trainers ruined. In my mind’s eye I saw my dad laughing wryly, shaking his head, letting loose a ‘Jesus Christ’ and not in a religious way. But they would have laughed, and we laughed, and I felt a strange lightness after we had done what we had to on their special day. A day we should have been able to celebrate in their number 66 house with the proper prawn curry.

In the car on the way home, I found I had ashes in my pocket and my handbag. Not as macabre as you might think, it was just my mum and dad, nothing to fear here folks, how could I when I had loved them so dearly. There was nothing to be ‘scunnered’ about, as mum would have said.

They’re back where they started and I’ll have an added layer of fondness and memories to Scarborough whenever I go back though I haven’t been yet, because it’s still a wee bit raw. But a year on I know I chose wisely. To many, ashes are just ashes and it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m overly romantic, but you have to go with your gut. I needed mum and dad to be in the right place - and together. I can think of them folded in time there now, walking on the beach, having their fish and chips in the sunshine, planning their future life, wondering if they can make it work because dad lived in Yorkshire and mum lived in Glasgow. But they did. And I hope somewhere in the ether, they still are.

Happy Anniversary my darlings. Wherever you may be x