Mom's Ashes

Mom passed into the arms of Jesus on February 10, 2022. On August 17, 2026, I knew what to do with her ashes.

Since February 2022, her ashes have been sitting in a cardboard box, enclosed in a green velvet bag. They weigh five and a half pounds.

I scattered my dad’s ashes on Tiger Mountain in 2020, on the Bus Trail, a wheel chair accessible trail that loops around to Tradition Lake and features an ancient abandoned school bus. Although I had permission to scatter the ashes, it was requested that I be unobtrusive as it might freak hikers out. It was an immense amount of material to hide amongst the salal and ferns, without stepping off the trail.

Dad loved Tiger Mountain. In his late ‘80s, he was still toiling up to the top of West Tiger 3 with his walking sticks, greeting the flowers, shrubs and trees. Terrifying. Well, to me, anyway! And it’s true, he did take out a power pole on East Lake Sammamish one day, falling asleep driving home exhausted and dehydrated after one such hike. So that seemed a good place for his ashes.

But what about Mom’s? Wisconsin raised, farm girl, WWII Navy nurse who crossed the Equator by ship, avid horsewoman. So many places we hiked and camped when I was growing up. Where, of all the places she had enjoyed, would be the best resting place?

On Tuesday, August 17, I knew where to put them. Here’s what happened.

At 10:00am in the Creekside sanctuary, the facilities team gathered for planning, donuts and a little Bible discussion as usual. Our leader, JD, wasn’t there, but he had prepared the discussion materials and left them on the round table.

The passage was Romans 8:18-25 beginning with “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” and on to “For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.”

The facilities team was enlarged that day by the women making plans for Debra Mason’s memorial. They took up the topic with beautiful stories of praying for strangers. Then we segued to the subject of our parents, and their passing.

Sue Peterson said, “I’ve got to tell you a story.”

After Craig’s mom died, his mom’s ashes came home to him. He stored them in a box under his desk until he could arrange a suitable time and place to honorably distribute them.

One day, Sue heard beeping. Steady beeping. What is that??? She began looking around the house. She enlisted Craig in the search. They looked and looked and suddenly Craig ran to his office, “It’s Mom!”

Yep. Her pacemaker was placed beside the box of ashes in the bag beneath his desk. And it wouldn’t stop beeping. Craig and Sue tried and tried, and finally put the pacemaker in the garage, where it continued to beep for a long time.

As we misted up and chuckled, it dawned on me - the perfect place to scatter Mom’s ashes. With Dad’s ashes!

Dad had told me how shortly after they were married, she waved a sheaf of letters from her Navy friends in the air and dumped them in the trash - “That’s my old life. My life is now with you.” He almost fished them out; wished he had.

Dad was truly the heart of Mom’s life. Even with severe dementia, she remembered he was the heart of her life, as I wrote about in “I Want to Go With Him”. Although I know that Mom and Dad are together with Jesus now, it will be sweet to sprinkle her ashes on Tiger Mountain with his.