Pacific Ocean
Since my father never specified what to do with his body when he died, my mother decided to bury his ashes in the sea, just as she did for her father when he died. Although we left Indonesia in the 1980s, my father longed to return. I asked my mother about taking part of his ashes to Indonesia to spread it there. She said, there was no need; the ocean is one. And regardless of where we would end up living, we can go to the ocean and visit him. At my grandfather’s ritual, they tied a string to the urn, to which everyone in the boat would hold onto, so that when the urn sank, so would the string, and eventually everyone would literally have to let go. I braided a local plant into a homemade string for my father.
We set off from Newport Beach on a sunny, calm day. 42 people including my siblings, their families, my mother, 30 of her best friends, my friend, and I piled into the boat with the crew.
40 minutes later, the boat idled in the ocean. After prayers were said, the captain surprised us by letting us lower the urn into the water ourselves. I took the urn with the homemade string. The other end of the string was meant for my mother to hold. She relied on a walker so she stayed on the main floor. My hands couldn’t reach down into the deep blue water, but I felt its cold splashes. I dropped the urn into the water and it went down fast, as did the string.
I’d like to think that the ashes would nourish creatures, and those creatures would nourish others, and that eventually my father would make his way back to the waters of Indonesia.
Irene Wibawa • she/her • Indonesia/ Richmond, CA
Irene Wibawa is a multidisciplinary artist. She honors her family and community by telling their stories. She is ethnically Chinese, born in Indonesia, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area on unceded territory of the Ohlone people. She is enthusiastic about plants, insects, and is a work in progress.
