Photo by American Green Travel on Unsplash

Scattering Mom and Dad: A Humorous Family Story About Ashes

By Debbie L. Miller

“Oh my God, I’m inhaling my parents!” Rhonda, my oldest sister cries, as the wind blows ashes in her face.

Rhona had opened the bag and reached in to fling some ashes, just as the wind kicked up and blew them back at her. “Pfft!” she said, as she winced and spit out the offending substance. Meanwhile, Cindy, my middle sister, mumbled a prayer she’d found when she Googled “DIY Ash Scatterings.”

*

It was a bright, sunny day in October when my sisters and I rendezvous at the airport in Denver for a weekend in Colorado, to scatter the ashes of our deceased parents in Rocky Mountain National Park.

My sisters were afraid we’d get caught strewing human remains in a national park, so, instead of driving far into the park, up into the mountains my parents had loved, Rhonda and Cindy drove our rental car a few hundred feet into the park, and announced this was where we were going to “dump,” I mean, “disperse” our dear parents’ remains.

“But, Mom and Dad loved this park,” I protest. “We need to drive further until we find a suitable mountainside vista.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not doing that,” Rhonda says.

“We don’t want to get caught,” Cindy, the middle sister, explains. “It’s illegal to distribute human remains, and besides, Mom and Dad won’t know the difference.”

“But, we’ll know,” I stammer.

“Come on. This looks like as good a place as any,” Rhonda says as she pulls the car a few feet off the road and parks.

“Okay,” Cindy says she jumps out of the car. “There.” She pointes to a boulder surrounded by scrub brush.

“Guys,” I protest, “I think we should honor Mom and Dad’s requests — “

“Delores. This is where we’re putting the ashes. If you don’t like it, go sit in the car,” Rhonda says in her best big-sister voice.

*

So, it was decided that we would stealthily sprinkle the ashes behind the giant rock, so as not to arouse suspicion. Like criminals, we would have no witnesses to our dastardly deed. As if the park rangers didn’t have enough to do, between confiscating…