Back to Rio

Ro makes a point to Zélia on Copacabana beach, January 2007.

Rio de Janeiro is a special place. Sometimes it feels more like an organism than a city. Vibrant, tough, loving, spectacular, messy, urban, natural, and quite alive. I love going there. But this visit carried a particular purpose - to deliver Rosina's ashes to the sea. Half her ashes, actually, as she also always wanted to be in the Pacific ocean as well, off the north shore of Kaua'i. Kaua'i is like Rio in a way, but without the city - Rio 200 years ago. The kids and I traveled with Sonia as well as our and Rosina's dear friend, Marla. She came on a kind of meaningful whim and is glad she did.

On Easter Sunday, March 23, we gathered at the Yacht Club or as it's spelled in portuguese, "Iate" and twelve of us boarded the boat. It was a pretty decent size with a roof deck above and a couple of rooms below. We headed out of Guanabara bay, passed not far from Zélia's house, rounded Pão de Açucar (Sugarloaf) and headed out into the ocean: the orange line below.

Rosina lived from age 5 to 24 near Copacabana beach. It was part of her neighborhood. She went to the beach the way you might go play tennis or go to the store or sit on your porch. It was a daily part of her life. It's hard to describe the view of the city from out there in the ocean, the mix of huge rock faces on mountains of jungle greens footed with high rise buildings, but I can tell you it's beautiful and dramatic and a fitting place.

For days before we left I kept wondering how to carry the ashes, how to let them go? They are delivered in a plastic bag which is inside a plastic box, which is inside a velor bag. Kind of a Crown Royal bag. They offer all kinds of urns and such for sale at the funeral home, but they all seemed too Gothic to me, plus I'm suspicious of the business of profiting from people in misery.
Although I have to say that the miserable day when Nina and Pearce and I were at the funeral home, the very day she died, we laughed as we considered buying the "memory book" that had an American flag printed on the cover and the caption "Thanks From a Grateful Nation".

I decided to just take the ashes as they were, and after separating half of them out with big kitchen spoon (to take to Hawaii later), I packed the box in my carry on bag. Ashes, by the way, are not really "ashy", it's more like dusty sand. I think, in fact, it's mostly bone. Is this too much info? When you see someone who has died you can easily tell that that they're not there anymore, maybe their spirit floats around the room, floats around inside you, but at the same time - holy crap! It's them! So it is with the ashes.

Once we had reached a good spot, the engines were shut off and I took the box out of Rosina's orange back pack. Lea had brought white roses and we all threw them on out onto the water. It was quite clear to me, after previously thinking that this was a bit odd, that the best way to set her off into the ocean was simply by taking handfuls and releasing them. And that is what we did.

First me, then the kids, and then everyone else. The boat had a small landing in the stern that was right at the water's edge. I let them go on top, Jake sunk his hand in the water, some threw theirs to the wind. We all did it, more than once. It instantly felt right, it felt secure, and it was simple. But there were tears and there were the reminders of the shock of it all that causes Zélia and I to repeatedly say to each other "So, it's true."

I jumped into the water soon after, a ceremonial dive, not unlike the one we took at our Brazilian wedding, and then before the current carried me away, I swam back to the boat. We went and anchored off another beach and several of us went swimming before heading back to the house for a lunch with a few other dear friends and cousins.

May you never need to to do this, but if so, may it be as beautiful. Sweet girl, keep swimming.

xo
ph


Off the coast of Fernando de Naronha, March '06
The lyrics to the chorus:
Who taught me how to swim?
Who taught me how to swim?
It was, it was, sailor,
It was the fishies in the sea
It was, it was, sailor,
It was the fishies in the sea