Spreading Julie’s Ashes

Julie’s essence is all around us

Our family spread the last of Julie’s ashes in Fox Cove on Sucia Island on September 3, almost exactly two years after we learned that she had lung cancer. Fox Cove was a favorite anchorage of Julie’s and one of the spots she wanted for a final resting place.

Julie and me in Fox Cove, October 2022, before cancer

She also asked that we spread some of her ashes in the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, where she grew up. So last spring, on May 11, the day after the funeral of her mother Pat, Julie’s sister Robin, brother Scott, Scott’s children, and I poured some of Julie’s ashes into the river. We watched the current catch her ash and carry it away, over a falls and under the bridge she road her bike over as a girl.

My friend and companion on the trip to Greenland this summer, Sam Devlin, offered to spread some of Julie’s ashes when the expedition crossed above the Arctic Circle. I thought that was a wonderful idea but Robin wasn’t so sure, “Julie really didn’t like to be cold.” Robin relented when I explained that I thought Julie would appreciate the symbolism that her ashes would be in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Arctic, surrounding us wherever we go. Moreover, when I used to ask Julie about what she wanted for some aspect of her memorial service, she’d say, “Oh, I don’t care. I’ll be dead!” and then laugh.

So we also spread a few of Julie’s ashes in Sylvan Cove on Decatur Island, another favorite spot of Julie’s and a place Margot and Burgess visited often for family time with our friends Tom Weeks and Deb Oyer and their children Flora and Mitch. We made videos at each of these four locations and some of what was said as her ashes entered the water that you can find here.

I am now in Portugal with Tom, Deb, and a group of their family and friends on a Backroads bike trip between Madrid, Spain and Porto, Portugal to celebrate Deb’s birthday. I was telling Tom’s brother Bob about spreading Julie’s ashes and he shared a story about a marine scientist who had spread his father’s ashes in the same waters of the Salish Sea. He calculated that given the current and ocean gyres, it would take about a human lifetime for some of those ashes to make their way to every ocean on the planet. So Julie, who was always a step ahead, is now well on her way to moving through all the world’s oceans.

Spreading Julie’s ashes was part of a week-long trip cruising the San Juan Islands on two boats. Margot, Daniel, Lucy, and I were on a chartered Grand Banks 36 and Burgess, Ksenia, Emory, Parsley the dog, and Lenny the bengal cat were on our Devlin Blackcrown 29. Julie would have been delighted that we were all together on beautiful boats in perfect summer weather. We were terribly sad at times, missed her every day, and were so grateful to have each other. You can see lots of mostly happy pictures of our time together here.

My grief over Julie’s death has not lessened; it rises and falls, like the ocean she now rests in. The wave height and period are unpredictable and sometimes tip me over. Mostly though, I stay upright and keep going. I’m grateful for the life I shared with Julie and curious about how my grief and my life will unfold from here.

Julie in Fox Cove in 2021