It’s really a great ride from my house to Matheson Hammock Park. It’s kind of a swampy park. Right on Biscayne Bay, with a Mangrove forest and an inlet with a little marina that boats to and from-from.
I’ve been biking there for years.
For a while I went religiously. Every Monday at around midday I’d pedal my beat up old mountain bike on over about 45 minutes each way. I’d always take a different way home though through the old, abandoned nursery.
Once I got to my spot, I’d sit on the wall by the shore.
That’s where I spread my mother’s ashes. Soon after, the eyebrows of my wonderful dog, Ali, were left there.
Ali had glorious eyebrows.
I remember sobbing when I cut them off when he died in my arms at the vet’s office. I put them in a little plastic harmonica case to take with me to my spot.
A decade later, my father’s fresh ashes were brought as well. I performed the same ritual one last time.
I had gone to visit, sit there, and reflect, less and less lately. Maybe once every couple months anymore.
I felt sort of guilty whenever I thought about it.
It’s never really super packed at The Hammock. Not when I go anyway.
My folks used to take me there all the time when I was little.
I’d look for shells and try to catch the crazy little water animals that lived just beneath the muddy shore with my Ma. She’d root me on, plastic bucket in hand, and tell me to be careful with a smile on her face.
My dad would usually sit on the coral wall, depending on the tide, and fish some. That’s before I got old enough to start fishing with him all the time. Before he discovered the rich, white man’s sport of tennis.
My mother always said she wanted to be cremated when she died and her ashes spread in a free flowing body of water that goes both in and out.
When the time came, I knew just the place.
Right where the inlet starts, there’s that coral wall that leads to a circle. There’s a flagpole right in the middle of that circle with a plaque under it.
The brass plaque reads:
“You lost friends are not dead, but gone before. Advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.”
Sounded pretty on the nose to me.
The water flow situation was as requested.
Sande would totally approve.
I brought my pop with me to the park on a grey Monday by that musky bay.
Even the seagulls seemed sad. Occasional Egrets, stoic as ever.
We parked and walked out for a while towards the flag.
We didn’t speak. We passed the marina on the right. The mangroves seemed to crawl along with their roots exposed ,partially blocking our view of the tide pool on the left. It was for families and children to swim there, critter free.
Once we reached the circle, I waded out into the warm, dark water, till it was all the way up to my chest. In my right hand, I had the semi see-through plastic bag that held my mother’s ashes.
Her soot, basically.
My father stood with his back to the coral wall and feet just touching the water. The same exact spot he used to fish from decades earlier. He was slumped over, bawling his eyes out.
At that point, I didn’t think he’d live for ten more weeks. I could never imagine he had another ten years in him.
It was nice and windy that day. I tore open the bag and she went everywhere. There was a lot too. Some got on me and I kind of liked it.
I don’t remember getting out of the water.
That’s all I remember from that day.
That’s all I would remember for a long time after that.
Life was a blur.
