Building the Reef

If you build it, they will come.  This is definitely true for sea life; you can have a relatively bare space of ocean floor, but put something out there (say, sink an old car or a ship) and within months it will be teeming with barnacles, seaweed, fish and other creatures.

There is a company in Alabama (Walter Marine/Reefmaker) that makes cement and stone artificial reefs.  They are large (8 ft. high, 1500 pound) three sided pyramids.

And, if you like, you can buy one, personalize it, and turn it into a memorial.  And this is what I did for Bob.

Early morning on May 26, I got up and drove to Panama City, where our friend Kim lives.  God Bless her, she wanted to drive me to the Reefmaker for what is called "the pour."  I'm not sure what we were expecting, (after all, we were there to part with Bob's mortal remains)  but it was not to drive up to a chain link gate in a cement yard.  But why not?  And as we walked around, I felt good about the place.  A funeral home with a coffin and people in suits and dresses talking in hushed tones would have seemed out of place for Bob.  But this place would appeal to the inner 8-year-old.  Lots of big equipment and metal and rocks.  Bob was a maker (as am I).  And this was a place where things were being made.

Seahorses for an underwater museum

And where I would take part in the making of his memorial.  I had brought along Bob's ashes and other items to embed in the cement.  A doll to represent his famed "Island of the Dolls" scene on the haunted trail.  One of his scale models, and a first-place prize medal.  A packet of Panzit noodles, for his love of the Philippians.  An amulet from his sister.   A copy of the Shakespeare sonnet 116.  And the ashes of his cat, Fiona.

And here are the two of us (well, the three of us.  Fiona is in the box with him), on our last road trip together.

Yes, that's a wheel weight in the middle.  Bob always picked them up because the lead was good for casting bullets.  Got a little obsessive about it.  And Kim happened to have one in her car

The three large frames are laid out, the cement poured in, and then it's time.  First, Bob's ashes.

Then, personal items.

Finally, I read the sonnet ("let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments").  I had planned on reading it with grace and sorrow, but the truth is that I broke down completely and could barely choke the words out.

But then a lovely thing happened.  There were two more memorial reefs being poured that day, and a woman from one of them came over to talk to me, crying hard, because she could see how much I was hurting and wanted to give her condolences.

I wish I could thank her, and tell her how important that was.  Earlier this week I was listening to an NPR article on grieving during the pandemic.  It said that two things were needed:  Time to grieve alone and time to grieve in public.  To many in isolation with family, the alone time is hard to find.  But I've had that in abundance.  But the other, the public grief, I haven't.  The article said it was important to let people see your pain, to bear witness to your loss.  And mostly, the rare times I've been around other people (like at work) I haven't shown it.

I finally felt that I had given Bob his funeral.  And my hand, in a final farewell.

(with Kim's thumbprint for good measure.)

We were through by noon.  My mind, always clicking, thought we could be back at her house by three or so, and I could be back home a couple of hours later.  I reined myself in.  I needed time to decompress, to process.  I asked Kim if we could take the coast road home (shorter in distance but much longer in time).  The coastline is lovely here, and we found a place under a shelter to picnic (and make snarky comments about the people crowded far too closely on the beach).  I spent the night with her and was more prepared to go home the next day.

*******Nothing in my world is ever totally serious.  Two funny events that day.  One--when we were going to our reef molds, the family on the other side (not the woman who came to see me--this was the third group) was starting to put the ashes in the cement.  At first it was the father, but his wife started whanging at him "you're spilling him!  you're spilling him!" and grabbed the bag and distributed the ashes herself.  But when she was finished, she started shaking the bag to get the last bits out--and poor Kim happened to be slightly downwind and got enveloped in a gentle cloud of Dave and quite possible breathed some of him in.  (This is probably funnier for me than it was for Kim).

The other was a picture that Kim couldn't resist taking because she has a dirty mind.  The final pyramid will have a central support.  Glad you're happy to be here, Bob.