As is often the case in life (or so I've found, at least), things didn't go quite as i'd envisioned. Instead of the sad, dignified, symbolic experience I anticipated, I had farce. But somehow, me being me, and my dad being who he was, that didn't ruin it.
I had detailed instructions from my dad's friends on how to find the place they'd scattered my dad's best friend's ashes years ago (a hollow tree in a wooded area near the race course stables). And, as though guided by my father's hand, I am certain I found the very spot.
Only there were people around. And it's technically not legal to dump ashes any old place you like, so I didn't want to do it in front of them.
Keep in mind that dad was in multiple twist-tied baggies (because it would be distressing and awful to have the ashes spill out in my handbag). Also, my dad's friend's widow had given me a tupperware bowl filled with the last of her husband's ashes, which she had never gotten around to scattering. And my mom had me bring the ashes of the family dog (whom my dad adored). And I had a baggie with my poem ashes.
So picture me with endless quadruple-wrapped, tupperware-encased, twist-tied, ziplocked packets of assorted remains, which I must undo and scatter illicitly in a semi-public place.
I thought perhaps I could pretend I was picnicking, and dump them surreptitiously, but the sheer logistics of getting through all those bags and bundles under the idle gaze of stable hands and casual passersby defeated me. With a silent apology to dad, I found a more secluded tree.
Only I still never had more than a minute or two without someone coming by. I shall not trouble you with the sordid details, except to say that instead of the teary, emotional, fraught-with-symbolism affair i'd pictured, I was furtively scrambling with multiple dusty bags, dumping them as hastily as possible, and, i'm afraid, giggling.
But the funny thing is, I very much felt Dad with me. How he would have laughed at seeing his normally poised daughter engaged in this rather less than dignified enterprise. He would have held his stomach laughing as I rustled around for dead leaves to cover the pile of assorted ashes (which are heavy, like sand, and do not drift mystically into the summer breeze), and hunted around for a trash can to get rid of the dusty collection of bags. (I had a mad fleeting thought that my dad's friend's widow might want her tupperware back. It passed.)
But more than any time since my dad died, I felt him with me. I can't really explain that; you would have to know us both.
I am no gambler, but I then went to the track (where my father went every August) to place a sentimental bet in his honor. The next race had two horses whose names leapt out at me: "Where's Poppa?" and "A Few Good Friends". I bet Poppa to win, and Friends to place. Friends came in third. Poppa came in last, so far behind he was practically in another race; the betters around me were making jokes about it. And Dad would have gotten a big laugh out of that, too.