I’d never been out West. Always East. I flew to Colorado with my father’s ashes, so he could have his final rest near his mother, up in the mountains. From the plane, you could see how the unsettling flatness of the midwestern prairie slams right up against the Rockies, just like they tell you. But it’s still pretty remarkable and exotic.
My aunt Janet Saunders (my father’s twin) and her son Rob picked me up at the Denver airport. Cousin Rob and I hadn’t seen each other since we were very young, now he’s middle-aged. Guess I’m getting there too… Rob’s a Republican generally but of the increasingly rare thoughtful kind (like my dad was, usually). He has no use for the Tea Party. Says he’s actually getting more liberal, the way things are going. He and his mother share a wry, flinty sense of humor marked by a funny staccato laugh. Their whole family is somehow both quintessentially American and quite worldly, having traveled and lived around the world growing up with their late father, who was in the oil exploration business.
From the airport we made a beeline straight up into the Rockies. Wildfires were billowing smoke off to the north, up the slope from the urban sprawl. Soon we were in the mountain town of Frisco, where my cousin Susan, Rob’s sister, has a share in a nice condo overlooking a lake. Frisco is not too touristy, more of a real town. The altitude and low humidity take their toll pretty quick, everyone tells you to drink a lot of water and take it easy. Which helps, but if you’re a lowlander you can find yourself walking around feeling pretty dry and just a little off overall. The first night I woke up gasping at one point, my throat and sinuses parched.
The next day we headed further on, past the Continental Divide, to the ski resort town of Vail, where their family used to have a house. They bought just before Vail transformed into a millionaires’ winter playground. Back when they lived there, if a relative died they could simply go out their back door, up the mountain a bit into the White River National Forest, and spread the ashes. (Cremation seems to be the thing in the Crandall/Saunders clan.)
My grandmother Elizabeth (Betty) Crandall is there on a upper ridge. Everyone was younger and healthier then and could make the trek. Just below, from more recent years, are my cousin Bruce (Susan and Rob’s brother), who died too young, and their father Bob, who died just a few months ago. Aunt Janet plans to be up there as well, hopefully not too soon. She dutifully wheels her oxygen tank around with her, otherwise going pretty strong and sharp for 80. Though she might say otherwise.
Since they sold that Vail house (a McMansion has taken its place), we had to sort of cut through a neighbor’s driveway to get up into the forest. We had a brief memorial circle, holding hands under the watchful eyes of a squawking black squirrel that appeared out of nowhere. Aunt Janet and cousin Susan waited at the bottom and Rob and I set off with my father’s urn.
That’s when it really set in. It was so stunning in every direction, yet it was so hard to keep emotions in check, do the job I was there to do. My father loved this area when he visited. He made so many beautiful photos in Colorado - for a self-proclaimed ‘poor man’s Ansel Adams with a twist’, it was hard to go wrong photo-wise. I felt like it was HIS landscape. His father and mother actually met in Colorado, up in Boulder I think, so maybe he felt the connection.
Trudging up the path, deep, gothic shade would break out into brash midday sunshine and back again. Rob pointed out where cousin Bruce was spread, and Uncle Bob. Lodgepole trees stood devastated by pine beetles, amid little clusters of aspen shimmering gold and beautiful healthy blue spruce framing the distant mountaintops. Circle of life.
A final steep climb to the small clearing where dad’s mother rests. It’s a view worthy of someone like my father who was a visual artist and very classically American himself, with a real feeling for the land in a old-time sense.
I had given Rob my other camera, I wanted to fully document this experience. He took some really nice shots. I can’t imagine doing a much more profound thing in my lifetime. I want to be able to put myself back in that moment, to help me stay connected to my dad who will rest so far away.
I found a suitable spot next to his mother, marked by a distinctive rock in case I go back. I opened the cardboard American flag urn I bought from the funeral home. A so-called dispersal urn. I spread his ashes as carefully as I could, it’s hard not to get the ashes - which are more like sand - on you in the breeze. It doesn’t waft away like you think it might.
Then, well, that’s it. Said final goodbyes. I think he’ll be at peace there, I hope so. I hope he likes it. How to know?
We went back down the mountain, mostly in silence. Later, Rob and I drove around the area. He stopped to drop a fishing line in Gore Creek for a few minutes, just down the slope from where my dad is. We figured this is where winter snow runoff would pass by, carrying minute pieces of my father’s being with it, feeding into the Colorado River via the Eagle River, and onward to the Gulf of Mexico and the waters of the world. I took a few small stones from the clear, rushing stream to take home.
The next day, back down through the outskirts of Denver and the flight home. The modern airport, with its distinctive cloth 'sails’, looks like a futuristic ship marooned on the vast prairie. I still couldn’t shake the strangeness of the whole endeavor. But I was satisfied.
Back home now in Washington, back to family, work, onward pursuits. I miss my father of course. But I know I did everything I could to make something beautiful from his passing.
So hard that I can’t even call him on the phone for our usual chats. I still have a saved voice mail message from him, from near the end. I play it back sometimes. He said he was having problems dialing out with the hospital phone. “I want to talk to you… I’m not sure what to do.”
Feeling the same way right now, dad.
