It was the time I was stressing about. Saturday, I picked up Quinn at the halfway mark. We drove to Tacoma and Point Defiance. We waiting at Owen Beach for awhile, until all the nephews showed up. Dean brought Dewey, Lon ‘s macaw, and his new cockatoo, Ace. I had to keep my distance. We couldn’t find a good spot to spread the ashes on Five mile drive, so decided to do it on the Vashon Ferry. Lon used to live on Vashon and took the ferry to work at the shipyard. And we spread his mom’s ashes from that ferry too. We found out that they will slow the ferry to let you spread the ashes. The problem was that they have a different idea of what that means. I opened the bag and let them fly. I was supposed to just heave the bag overboard. I’m glad I didn’t know.
We drove home, after eating lunch. Quinn had Abe with him, which was nice. The baby got a bit cranky, but it’s a long drive. Sunday was the memorial. I’d picked up Lon’s favorite cookies. I bought a small coffee maker and had milk to go with the cookies. The boating friend, the Coots, showed up, as did two of the nephews and a lot of Quinn’s friends. I had that list of songs Lon wanted to be played. I ran those from my phone to a bluetooth speaker. And I had posters of him, taped up in the room. I think it went off pretty well. Quinn’s sister picked up him, so I didn’t have to do the long drive to the coast.
There’s no easy way to say goodbye and I miss him, every day. Here’s a picture of him from happier times, when he could still go boating, in the time before we met.
Leave a Comment