Airplane Difficulties, Ashes, and Hope 1 - A vacation post

So, this is the second post in my vacation series. There was good too, honest there was, and we'll get to that.  There was also sadness, lots of sadness.  in my last vacation post I talked about how our trip was scheduled so as to meet up with my entire family (minus 1 due to work) and spread my grandmother's ashes. She loves the island, she used to spend every summer there. It was one of her favorite places. It's incredibly peaceful, beautiful, and grounding.  Have you seen the pictures?

So, there were lots of people with jobs, and lives, and kids, who all had to be coordinated for this single event.  We managed to end up with a window of 1 evening. One of my cousins was supposed to fly in early that afternoon, and another had to leave the following morning.  So, this was it.  My cousin coming in was going to take a Ferry, but in hopes of everyone getting to attend, and not wandering around all night, it was decided she would take one of the small planes. 

and I mean, small plane

These planes are not a hit. It turns out, the last cousin flying in was Emily's younger sister.  My uncle went to pick her up from the tiny (seriously, this thing is 1 dirt runway, and a hanger) airport. My aunt waited for them to show up.  .....and she waited.... and waited.... and she got nervous, and she walked up to the top of the hill to meet them.  Cell phones don't work so well, or at all, out here. 

After she had been gone awhile, there was a phone call to the house. My cousins plane had experienced mechanical difficulties, and had been sent back to the mainland. 

I think I wrote about how I found out Em died. For her sisters and her parents though it was different. It was an afternoon of unkept appointments, and unanswered phone calls.  You don't expect the worst, you just don't, not until it happens. Then I'm not sure you expect anything else ever again. 

I left the house to find my aunt. She saw me coming and asked what was wrong. She was crying, and demanding to know, and she knew, she knew something was wrong. It had been too long.  So I told her the plane had experienced mechanical difficulties, and had to go back to the mainland. She freaked, she was terrified. Faced with this situation I did the best thing I could come up with at the time. I lied. I told a huge, horrible, bold faced lie, and I dared the fates to prove me a lier. I told my aunt her daughters plane was safe on the mainland. It had landed.  She was SAFE with her feet on the ground, and her cell phone would be turned back on soon so she'd be able to call us.  (Sorry Nan. I couldn't let you worry. Don't hate me.)  I knew that either it WOULD be true shortly, or that, god help us, if it wasn't true I wasn't going to be the concern. 

And so we walked back to the house, and she ranted, and panicked, and I tried to comfort her, and we both cried. At one point she told me how upset she gets when she can't get ahold of her daughters on the phone. I told her i understood, and she told me I didn't. She told me I didn't understand, and that she hoped I never did. I told her she was right.  Every night I put my children to sleep and I pray I never understand. 

As we walked back to the house, my other aunt and sister came walking up towards us with my daughter.  There were two deer on our left. They kept walking away from my sister's group, and walking towards my aunt and me. They came very close, and, in fact, crossed the road directly behind us. My sister said they reached their noses out and sniffed us. If we'd turned around we could have touched them.

They were coming to tell us my cousin had called. She was on the ground. Her phone was on, and she was waiting for her mother to call her. She was fine.  My aunt and sister came to tell us this. The deer, the deer just came. I told my aunt they were Em. That was Em's spirit showing us it was going to be ok. She had come to touch us so we would know that her sister was ok. It didn't feel right. I decided later that, if the deer were any spirit, they were probably my grandmother's. The bald eagle that circled us as we spread the ashes, as we all gathered as a family. The eagle that watched us from the sky, that was Em. They put my cousins on another plane. This time she landed without incident, and made it to the house.

There is more to tell of this day. I'm feeling emotionally drained at the moment though, so I will end this chapter here, and try and write the conclusion tomorrow.