A Final Farewell...

I recently came back from Puerto Rico (https://t.ly/6qVYN) where I was responsible for taking my mom's ashes back to the island. She had made a request of us (her children) that she wanted her ashes scattered in or near the town she grew up in, Islote in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

For some of the solemn tasks around my mother being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and eventual death, I was given some of the most difficult responsibilities. I had to give her the news that she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and that we would take care of her. I also took her ashes back to the island to be scattered and, along with family, said a few words.

Below are my final words to my mother and her send off to the great beyond. The pain of her death is still very real for me. As she sat in her hospital bed, not knowing she had cancer, I had to break the disastrous news to her. I did not get through the first sentence of the prepared research I had done on how you tell someone they have a terminal illness. Literally, after the first two or three words, I burst into tears and had to have her read my remarks.

My next struggle to get through was reading my thoughts on her passing when we spread her ashes. I did much better this time. It was read in Spanish by me to those in attendance.

Dear Mom,

I told myself I wouldn’t cry today. I am going to try my best. I just want to say a few words, as we bring you back to the place where you grew up, Arecibo and the outskirts of Arecibo.

I know over the years Mom, we talked about where you might want your ashes spread when you died. Sometimes it was Las Cabezas de San Juan, El Rio Guamani in Guayama, or in the outskirts of Arecibo. I think we found the perfect place for you, not far from where you grew up.

Ian and I spoke on the phone a few weeks ago about trying to find the right place to set you free here. We realized it might be a challenge to actually find a place for the dispersal of your ashes. And Briana filled me in about some of the legal and logistical issues that could be a problem. In the end, however, we found this place in Islote. I hope you like it.

You and Dad both lived truly blessed lives, you from Puerto Rico and Dad from Arkansas. You came from this blessed place Mom to California and raised three boys, while going through a painful divorce. You became an artist, scholar, and writer. All of your friends and family loved you dearly. At different times, to each of us, you could be a mother, friend, teacher, priest, writer, intellectual, or just plain Do?a Myrtha. As you know, you were deeply loved. Each of us hold a piece of you in our hearts, and will always hold that piece for you in our hearts, until it is our turn to see you again and return it. The pain of your loss is still with us.

When Ian and I had that early phone call deciding to spread Mom’s ashes here, it really sunk in to me that Mom is not only from here, as in being from Puerto Rico, or even being from Arecibo. Mom is literally from this spot.

A few years ago, when I was visiting Mom here and we were at the plaza, I asked her if she had ever been to mass in the big church that sits at one end of the plaza. She said of course, she went to mass there every Sunday! She had also shown me the elementary school she had attended nearby. It was empty and dilapidated now, but it really opened my eyes to the fact that you are an Arecibe?a. As a young girl, this literally was your stomping ground.

And now you are back home, near the cool breezes that blow up from the Islote shore. You are free to listen to the coqui at night, rocking back and forth on the front porch of your casita, wiping away the sweat from having worked in your garden. You are free to argue politics and fight for justice and equality. You are free to do nothing at all, except bask in the light that you are...and the love we all have for you.