Angel Watching over Me

 

Now that looks like a sad expression and I was trying to smile. But I was waiting for my appointment with the mortuary woman to pay to have my papers notarized to be cremated. After I die of course. I was not a happy camper but I thought it would be appropriate to have a photo taken of me next to the guardian angel.  Didn't change my mood but I tried. Even a Bloody Mary didn't help much. It is hard to look straight at death. Up close and personal death.

Not so hard when it is actually happening. I guess the thought of something unknown is always harder than the actual event. Several months ago when my friends were in my kitchen talking about what to do with me and I was in the living room floating out the window in perfect bliss, I knew death was not to be feared. 

I forgot that feeling today while thinking of what to do with my ashes. Wondering if my son would want a fancy four inch high polished wooden urn with a few of my ashes sent to his house in Portland. Thinking he might make an altar for me and put it in the center with a vase of flowers, candles and incense next to it and maybe this photo?

Who am I kidding? He barely has time to send me any e mails, certainly no time to set up a shrine to me. And why? He isn't a Buddhist.  I wasn't that great of a mother to him. And I will be gone no matter what he does after that. Photos,shrines, candles and incense won't make our mothers and fathers return to us. But lately my mother has been returning in my dreams. Maybe all this preparation for death is because it is close now.

 So what are we? A pile of ashes or souls floating in perfect bliss? Maybe we are both.