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Opinion: Snow geese provide inspiration to find dad’s final resting place

My father died in 2011 and ever since he’s been keeping me company in my office in a brown wooden box. I’ve been meaning to get him settled into his permanent place of rest for a while now, but I couldn’t decide where to put him.
snow geese
Watching the snow geese fly over our fields and marshes is beautiful, but it’s also unsettling, writes Community Comment columnist Ingrid Abbott.

My father died in 2011 and ever since he’s been keeping me company in my office in a brown wooden box. I’ve been meaning to get him settled into his permanent place of rest for a while now, but I couldn’t decide where to put him.

My cousin in Dublin and I were chatting over Facetime when the topic of internment came up.

“My father-in-law’s ashes were in the funeral home for over three years before we picked them up,” Geraldine told me. “The home was next door to a cinema so we figured he’d watched a lot of good movies over the years.”

After we laughed she got serious, “Don’t leave it any longer, Ingrid, get him in the ground.”

This summer I thought about scattering his ashes in the waters around the 9 o’clock gun in Coal Harbour. He used to go there and smoke in peace when everyone around him refused to watch him puff on a cigar while in the final stages of COPD.

I looked at boat rentals. We’ll make it a party, I thought, with wine and cheese and yell “Slainte” as we watched his ashes slide into the slippery blue sea. I never reserved the boat.

The force of nature that is the annual arrival of the snow geese has inspired me to finally complete my job of burying my father’s ashes. Watching the white birds fly over our fields and marshes is beautiful, but it’s also unsettling.

Swooping in giant white flocks, they are always on edge, nervous and flittering from one place to the next. The geese, like my father, must eventually rest. I needed a plan.

In South Delta, we have one official graveyard, the tranquil Boundary Bay Cemetery. Boasting rolling lawns, tranquil landscapes and panoramic views, it includes ethnic and religious diversity and has a section for veterans. It sounds perfect, but it’s only available for a tiny sliver of our 45,000 residents.

For practical and financial reasons, most of us will chose cremation, and most families will scatter them in places that hold special meaning. Like me, some of you may be holding onto ashes because it’s a difficult and emotional job deciding where to lay our loved ones.

In B.C., scattering human remains is guided by the don’t ask, don’t tell rule. The only guidelines are don’t distribute ashes in recreational or fresh water supply areas; if you want to spread them on private property, you need the landowner’s permission.

Talk to your family members about their last wishes for burial. It’s not easy, but it’s imperative so those responsible don’t leave you in their office for eight years.

I’ve decided my father will be buried in a cemetery on the Sunshine Coast with a view of the ocean and his own pillow marker in West Coast light grey granite. Dad won’t be alone, he’ll have the company of other family members.

Unlike the snow geese, he won’t be taking flight again, only in my dreams.

Ingrid Abbott is a freelance broadcaster and writer who plans to live into her late 90s and presumes dying will be different in 37 years, so why make plans.