A Return to the Woods

A Return to the Woods.
-Elisabeth Stokes
August 2026

 The Prologue.

  My mother died in 2015; my stepfather, “Pop ,” predeceased her by a few years. My mom decided to have Pop‘s body cremated, which is one reason I decided to have her cremated too. At first I thought I would inter them in the Veteran’s Cemetery, as Pop served in both World War II and Korea, but one of his sons would have to authorize this; both are out of state, and they cut off communication with me after my mother died.

   I debated buying a niche in the columbarium at a local cemetery where some of their friends chose to be interred , but realized if they wanted this option they probably would have chosen it long before death. So the ashes have moved with me, twice. A few months ago, my wife and I moved into a loft apartment with minimal storage and I knew it was time to make a decision.

   I thought over what I knew of their attitudes to death, as well as their values and what made them happy. They spent their final years in a condo, but never stopped missing the house they had before; where their backyard adjoined the wooded ravine of a state park and its acres of reservoir. Before her health drastically declined, my mother enjoyed walking in the woodland below the house. Wildlife frequented their property, and both of them enjoyed observing birds, deer, squirrels, and once a pair of raccoons who raised their kits in the backyard. My mom would call the State Park Ranger’s office whenever she heard gunfire indicating illegal hunting of deer or doves in the park, which happened sadly often.

   Mom never talked about death or the disposition of her body, the reality of death made her upset, and bringing it up made her angry, so I didn’t push. However, she often spoke of being depressed by the physical changes of aging. Looking back, I realize the facelift, carefully applied heavy makeup, and various wigs were symptoms of her distress and denial.

   Even as she became more debilitated, Mom still wanted to have “everything done,” and trusted her many doctors to keep her alive. However, when she was irrecoverably ill, she surprisingly refused a feeding tube, and when her decisional capacity faded, I changed her code status to a DNR. I’m still not sure she’d approve; she was “not a fan of mortality,” as my son once commented.

   Not only did she seem frightened of aging and dying, she seemed frightened of being around the dead. My mother asked me to pick up Pop’s ashes and keep them as she felt uncomfortable having them at the condo. I also remember she expressed feeling traumatized being around her parents bodies as they lay in the funeral parlor for calling hours. To be fair, my grandfather died on July 3 in a hot summer, and open casket calling hours were held both in Ohio and “down home“ in Georgia, where he was buried. By the time he was lowered into the red clay behind the weathered clapboard church of his youth, he didn’t look good. When my grandmother died, it was no surprise my mother asked me to stand between her and the casket so she wouldn’t be able to see the body.

   My stepfather was not explicit about wishes for his remains either, but his actions demonstrated commitment to frugality and to the natural world. He grew up during the Depression and utilized the “make do or do without” philosophy. An avid coupon clipper , he also repurposed plastic containers into bird-feeders, built bookcases, tables, and jewelry boxes, and sewed all the curtains for the house. In retirement, he earned certification from the Arbor Day Foundation as a citizen arborist, proudly displayed the “backyard habitat” placard from the National Wildlife Federation among the plants in his butterfly and bee garden, and drove his pickup weekly to the recycling center with a load of metal and cardboard.

   As a successful engineer, he invested wisely and spent conservatively. My mom and I joked about his penchant for good sales. Every year he would go to the jeweler on December 23 when big discounts were available, and every year my mother would find fabulous diamond jewelry under the Christmas tree.

   In retrospect, if any of us knew the harmful environmental effects of cremation, would we have chosen differently? I think Pop would have chosen a conservation burial. I don’t think Mom, with her concern about appearance, would have been comfortable with the idea of any kind of decay, so likely would’ve chosen cremation regardless.

The Journey.

   I packed poems, flowers from my garden, and the two bags of ashes into a well-used backpack, and drove past their former home, making sure it still featured the same white brick and dark mansard roof to help me identify it from the woods at the back. Then I left my car in a boat launch lot of the state park, and sauntered as nonchalantly as possible across the road to the wooded area behind the houses. I began asking directional help from the gods, saying “show me” and “point me.“

   The only accessible place to enter was through dense thorny undergrowth. A black cat, Celtic symbol of an ancestor nearby, appeared briefly then disappeared through the trees, and I followed the direction it had taken. The afternoon sun was hot and the ashes heavy against my back, but it felt important to be carrying the weight of their bones as I climbed down into the ravine, around the bog I remembered, and uphill again, looking for the house through summer-leafed trees. Due to the foliage, I had to walk right up to the level of backyards to actually be sure. The land below the backyards belongs to the park, so I was not trespassing, but I wished my teal backpack wasn’t so visible! I spotted a neighbor’s house first, and then the white brick. I could see the windows at the back of the house, the deck Pop built for wildlife watching, and the slope where my son’s swing set used to be. As I stepped through the thick fallen leaves, a white quartz- inclusion pebble caught my eye. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, reflecting on how it was here when my mother and Pop were here.

   Initially, I thought I’d find a place for the ashes right below the house, but it didn’t feel right; the water level in the nearby bog was low due to the heat, revealing old tires and a metal wash tub at the bottom. Those items have been there for years; I  remember how that disrespect for the land used to incense my mother. So I walked back down and up again to the very edge of the ravine road and used GPS to confirm I was still facing the back of the exact address. It needed to be right.

   I sat down among the trees at the crest of the land, looking at the silver water of the reservoir, and knowing the house was behind me through the woods. My mother and Pop loved the view of trees and water from their large family room and master bedroom windows in any season, but especially in winter. The Christmas tree was always put up in front of the family room windows, and fragments of the past floated to the surface of my mind. Coming home from college on winter break, magical Christmas days when my son was a baby and toddler, the year our cousins from Florida came and their children saw snow for the first time, baking cookies and making hors d’oeuvres as I helped my mother host her annual holiday open house. It felt nice to think that the family living in the house now very likely sets up their tree in the same place and looks out at the same view.

   I said “point me“” show me“ out loud and felt a sudden clarity as I spotted a straight standing remnant of a small dead tree; I tugged at it gently and it came up, leaving a vertical narrow hole which I excavated further with my hands and a trowel. I poured in some ashes, my mother and then Pop, with flowers from my garden in between each of them. I explained out loud to them why I chose the flowers. Sage for Pop because he was wise and always gave good advice; orange and purple coneflowers for Mom because of her colorful personality. My mom‘s shifting moods made her a difficult parent, but in her good phases , her exuberance was a lot of fun.

   I replaced the tree as it had been, like a sentinel. I rested for a moment and felt a distinct sense of being shown the next right place, a remnant of a hollow tree trunk with only the perimeter remaining. Several pieces easily came off in my hands, as if I was opening doors in a small round room with no ceiling. The Earth inside was soft because it was all decayed tree; Pop would have loved this metaphor of merging with a tree. It was easy to dig a larger hole here, and I did it entirely with my hands, and it felt raw and elemental. I layered in the ashes, mixing them with the flowers; mixing them by hand with each other’s ashes and the flowers and the soft tree-earth. A fair amount of Pop’s ashes spilled onto my jeans at some point, which made me smile because he would’ve smiled too. I noticed Pop’s ashes were much heavier and more gray than my mother’s, which were beige and lighter.   I suppose bone density had something to do with that, my mom being fragile and having broken so many bones by the end of her life.

   I read the memorial poems I’d selected, one for a teacher and one for an engineer, and I spoke to each of them, sharing memories and thanking them for all they did for me, for what they meant to me. I felt they were hearing my words and approving of my actions. I placed the bright quartz rock, an oak leaf , and the remaining flower fragments on top of the decayed tree-earth, and added a final layer of dirt scraped by hand a few feet away. When I replaced the edges of the tree trunk, the site looked exactly as I found it.

The Epilogue .

   I walked back the path I had come, noticing the lack of weight in my backpack and feeling lighter in my mind as well. I thanked the gods for answering my request to “show me,” and as I did, a monarch butterfly floated across the path in front of me.

   I didn’t sleep well that night, but it wasn’t due to negative or disturbing thoughts. I believe it’s because I’d done something important. I’d carried the remains of two of my parents on my back, filtered them through my hands, and dug them into the earth . I got covered in dirt and ashes, and then walked through the living forest back to my life. It felt right and symbolic of both mourning and life to be covered in dirt and ashes, and to walk away through the green trees.

    May you find peace in whatever ways you honor your beloved dead , Elisabeth