Somewhere over the Rainbow

If I could put music to this next blog it would Iz Kamakawiwo'ole, singing his beautiful rendition of Somewhere over the Rainbow.

This blog isn't about walking or England but about something we all have to deal with eventually. It is about three sisters putting their parents to rest and another purpose for my trip this summer.

We begin this journey in North Wales at a family reunion. I had already been reunited with my husband, curt and son, Ivan in Montgomery. They had just spent three stressful days getting to me via numerous international locations on our now, not so wonderful, buddy pass tickets. They were traveling in style with a hire car and it felt kind of bizarre to throw my pack in the boot (trunk) and whiz north, covering miles of Wales in a matter of minutes. Sounds weird to think that in only four weeks I could become so unaccustomed to traveling in a car but these four weeks have been intense and do not equate to time in my normal life.

We dropped Mick back at his home in llandundno and drove to Capel Curig to be reunited with an extended family that I barely new existed. Jane and Val are my Dad's sister's children and therefore my cousins, who up until last year I hadn't seen for forty years. It had seemed as though only my sister's and I were left surviving, but here we were in a crowd of people, introducing ourselves, shaking hands and hugging - my family. My other sister Lesley and three of her four children had also arrived and were part of this hugging session.

We spent hours reminiscing, trying to piece together fragmented memories, looking at old photographs and wondering why our parents had drifted so far apart.

Questions we could only speculate on but regardless, it was time to put mum and dad to rest. We had decided it should be on Tryfan, a mountain that stood out in our child hood memories as a family favorite.

Dad had been keeping mum in a shoe box for the last seven years, a box that I had unknowingly almost thrown away. He had reassured me then that he couldn't part with her and wanted to be reunited with her ashes upon his death. Dad was now in a plastic bag and it was time to make that reunion happen so they could rest together in a more appropriate place than a plastic bag and shoe box.

As the three of us drove down LLanberris pass towards Tryfan we were faced with a view that never fails to take my breath away. A view so imprinted in my memory from so many happy childhood walking trips. Tryfan stands bleak and imposing, a hardscape of grey rock and soft purple heathers. Waterfalls tumble and flow down the mountainside but from a distance look white and static. On top, and clearly visible this morning stand Adam and Eve, two massive stonehenge type rocks. If you are young and brave enough as I was many years ago, you jump between these rocks, risking death from the sheer drop on one side if you are unfortunate enough not to make the jump.





Perhaps a little apprehensively we started up the "Heather terrace" and the path that we always took with mum and dad. With impeccable timing and as if ordered as a tribute, two spitfires roared low overhead, twisting and turning as they sped fearlessly down the valley.

I carried mum on my back. Jill carried dad. Lesley carried the sandwiches.





As we walked we remembered.

Do you remember that picture you had taken there Jill? You had just had your hair cut and your jeans were all rolled up and I thought you looked really cool. That picture of you with pig tails Lesley, I think it was taken there. That is where you rescued me Jill when I was five, I fell off the mountain, eating my packet of bovril crisps. I was hanging by my fingertips before you pulled me to safety and I never spilt a crisp so mum used to say. The same paths, the same walls, stiles and rocks that were here 35 years ago, a timeless landscape.

We shared memories and gave each other a well needed update on our current life situations.

We scrambled on up to the top and ate lunch, delaying the task at hand for a little longer. It was oddly comforting to have them with us on our backs and sad to think we would be going back down without them.

It was very windy and cold and we could delay no further.

We opened up the containers and the ashes flew out and joined together in the wind. It was a magnificent, beautiful experience, exhilarating and happy and not at all sad as we had expected. We were laughing as they blew into the distance or congregated together on the rocks at our feet.











As we turned to leave the summit and started to climb back down we could hear dad saying to us in his Yorkshire accent,
"Ah, well dun lasses"





Now when I think of mum and dad, I think of them blowing over the mountains and valleys of LLandberris pass and snuggled together for eternity on the rocks and crevices of Tryfan.

"Somewhere over the rainbow,
way up high
And a dream that you dreamed of
once in a lullaby"







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Location:Main St,,United Kingdom