Hearts and Ashes on Brighton Beach

A memorial shrine to my birthmother set up in my suite at the A.G. Thomson House Bed and Breakfast where I stayed while in Duluth

Two weeks ago when I was lamenting not graduating in May from my MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment because of three missing credits, I was in a serious funk. If I wasn’t graduating, should I procrastinate writing the end of my memoir for my thesis committee? Wait till fall to defend it? With ten chapters to write and edit, I also needed an ending. What to do?

That day two weeks ago was Friday the 12th, and while sad-stewing I suddenly realized that I was coming up on a triple-decker-sandwich-grief-remembrance week. A best-chum from college had died of cancer in our late 40s on the 14th, my beau before Ed crashed and burned in his plane on the 17th, and my birthmother had died three hours after I introduced myself to her on the 21st in 1999. Maybe the grief pile was contributing to my glum? I spun around and glanced at the calendar. Every day leading up to my birthmother’s death was the same day and date as it had been in 1999. Could I parallel time travel to Duluth where she died, where I was conceived? Get some closure? An ending for the book? Then I wondered as I have for twenty-two years, what happened to her ashes? The last time I’d seen the box containing my mother’s ashes had been in June 1999 in the basement of my mother’s husband’s store in downtown Duluth.

Circa 1970s. My mother’s house has been replaced by another.

Long story short, I tracked down my birthmother’s husband, called him and learned he’d released the ashes on my mother’s property before he sold it. Her house had once sat on the banks of Lake Superior on London Road.

Then I found online the email of the current property owner and asked for access to the lake front to conduct my own ash-release ceremony on Sunday, February 21st at 4 pm, the time of my mother’s death. He happily and graciously granted me access.

Before I left Ames for Duluth, I made a gratitude box covered in photos of my biological parents, helpful angels, family I’ve gained because I searched, and photos of both sets of my parents (adopted and biological). And I made photo copies of some documents from my search to burn for ashes. One was a hand-written copy of the letter my mother wrote to the maternity home in Los Angeles where I was born, and the other a page from redacted documents chronicling my mother’s stay at the maternity home and my birth.

On Sunday, February 21st, I drove to the beach at Park Point in Duluth in the early afternoon and conducted my document-burning ceremony in my dog’s water bowl to the sound of ice moaning on Lake Superior.

Before leaving the beach at Park Point, I placed the ashes in my gratitude box.

When time neared to get settled on my mother’s former property, I drove to the address. But the driveway is a difficult turn off from London Road, and I drove by the address several times as snow fell and time ticked onward towards 4 o’clock. Finally at 3:50 pm, I pulled in to the narrow icy snow-covered driveway. It looked nothing to me like the owner had described in his email. So I backed out remembering Brighton Beach farther down London Road.

Three minutes to spare, I yanked ice cleats (yes, I travel with ice cleats) over the soles of my boots, and headed towards the icy shore not sure which way to turn. Left or right? Glancing down to the left, I spied a heart-shaped rock amongst all the pebbles and beach rocks not covered with ice or snow. Dropping the heart rock in my pocket, I walked towards the left, and soon noticed rocks placed in a heart shape in a bank of snow.

Thirty seconds to 4 pm, I set my gratitude box inside the heart on the snow, and stared out at Lake Superior covered in ice and gave thanks to my birthmother. I wished her well beyond the veil of fog, and told her I love her.

Then I picked up the box and with a flip of my left hand released the ashes. I watched as they fluttered onto the snow. In the near distance, kids gleefully squealed, dogs barked, footsteps crunched upon ice and snow, and fishermen fished concealed in colorful huts. I can come to this spot and pay my respects to my mother anytime, I thought.

And so I stood and stared and walked around for over an hour delighting in my calm joy, all the while brushing snow from my eyelashes, tip-toeing on and off the seven-inch thick ice, and from time to time I rubbed my freezing hands together to warm my finger tips. I felt so alive as winter-enthusiasts bustled around me. Clearly, I thought, I hail from this winter-wonderland, Duluth.