Dear Old Farty Pantx,
We delivered your ashes to your mom and dad in Deming, New Mexico. You’re not resting in your childhood home, but you are home and where you wanted to be.
Your mom and Forest put your urn in her garden beneath the cattail-dragonfly sculpture your youngest brother made. Some of your ashes were used to fill necklaces for your nieces; they gave me a necklace, too.
I made a promise to one of your nieces that she could fill those necklaces. However, we had to drag your stubborn butt out of that urn to do so. No kidding.
I’m thinking the lid was glued on the urn. Your youngest brother had other ideas. He thought you were inside the urn holding on to the lid and laughing at him and your oldest brother. Their strength combined, they couldn’t pry that damn lid off. No worries, though. I asked them to drill a hole in the urn’s bottom. After we removed a few ashes, we put a cork in it: an homage to something my Old Farty Pantz would have done himself.
You aren’t dusting the desert yet. I think someday, though, you’ll be scattered throughout that area.
I drove your mom, dad, and Forest to Silver City during our visit. We walked around the Big Ditch Park. That place has trails and steps these days. Remember when you and I used to go for walks down there? Just a big ditch we pretty much had to stumble down into.
Your folks, Forest, and I then walked around downtown Silver City, went and ate at Jalisco’s—food’s still great!
I drove us to the Little Walnut Picnic Area afterwards. Something clouded my memories of that place until we arrived. Our wedding ceremony there. The beautiful cake your mom made for us. You smearing it in my face. All the times we returned when Forest was a baby. The place hasn’t changed much. Your mom and dad, Forest and I—we’ve all changed, in ways none of us could have fathomed when you and I were wed.
Your mom kept trying to talk Forest and I into moving to Deming. When we left for the return trip home, she was crying. She was in such despair when you died. I’d never seen her cry, Honey. She was always tough as nails. Some part of her is just broken, “in a dark place” as she put it. Watch over her.
Much love,
Darling Only