After my experience with the ashes yesterday I found myself going back to the time when I had no idea what to do with my husband's ashes. He had loved the sea, specially in Cornwall so a friend took us out in his boat and the ashes were put into the stretch of water between the twin castles of Pendennis and St Mawes. It seemed only fair, we had eaten a lot of fish caught in that spot over the years.
After a year or so I realized that there was no one place to put flowers and more importantly no memorial. I had resisted the idea of inscriptions in the books at the local crematorium's Chapel of Rest as much too impersonal. So I had a think.
Eventually I rang the local stone mason and he agreed to my unusual request.
I got permission from the local councillors to put a granite dog bowl along the lugger in Portscatho. David's initials were inscribed and so was the deceased dog's.
We had often stopped by the tap along the harbor wall to let the dog drink from battered ice cream cartons and lamented the lack of a proper bowl. It seemed a good solution.
It was blessed by the vicar and a lot of old friends came to it.
Now I still clean it occasionally but it's much used by walkers to clean off their boots after a muddy walk. So it's often very dirty. Some people clean it for me and I sometimes sit on the seat next to it considering another inscription. Dogs drinking water. No mud please!
The bowl has become the stuff of legends in the ten years it's been there. I have been told several tear jerking stories about boys lost at sea. Heroic dog rescues and damsels in distress all feature in the stories. They are told to me by visitors. The locals know me far too well !
As a memorial it's not really working. I never put flowers on it for fear of what might happen to them but I do know that David would have loved it. And that's really all that matters.
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