The weather finally seems to be turning in our part of the world.  The snow is melting and the temperatures have been above freezing for a few days.  The sun is out.  I saw a robin in a tree in our front yard today.

Spring cannot be far behind, and with that, The Camping Machine will soon roll once again.  I can hardly wait.

But with Spring comes something else that is not so happy - the anniversary of the death of my mother. 

She died on Memorial Day 2005.  It happened the day after we returned from our very first camping trip in The Camping Machine.

As the oldest of her children and the executor of her will, it fell to me to make her final arrangements.  One of which was to select her final resting place.

She was not one to make those kinds of plans.  In fact, she had insisted she be cremated and her ashes scattered in the ocean.  Of course, I honored her request.  In early june of 2005 we scattered her ashes in the ocean at Nags Head, North Carolina.

But I kept a small amount of her ashes, with the idea that I would buy a burial plot for her back here where we live. Although our family is not originally from this part of the country, we've lived here for awhile. This place is home now for me, especially since my children were born here. My mom lived here, too, for many years, and in the last year of her life she told me a couple of time she wished she had never left. So there is a case to be made that this could be her final resting place.

Selfishly, I want to have a burial site for her here so I can bring Chris and Tommy to her grave on Memorial Days. Though they never really knew her while she was alive, I'd like them to understand a part of their heritage, their family history.

I told MBW about this plan, and she was on board with the idea. But then she took it one step further.

"Why don't you buy three plots?" she said.

"Um, why should I do that?"

"Buy two for us," she said, "so she won't be there all alone."

That was one of the most touching things she has ever said.

Both my wife and I are transplants to this city and state. We have no ancestors buried anywhere near here. There isn't a ‘family plot,' for either one of our families of origin, within 750 miles. So it is true that if we buried my mothers' ashes here, she would be ‘alone,' as far as being near relatives.

Honestly, I don't think my mom would care. But I was so moved by what MBW said that I decided to do it.

So I went out shopping for gravesites.

I walked into the cemetery office and the woman at the desk said, "May I help you?"

"Yes," I said, "I'd like to buy some burial plots."

She picked up a walkie-talkie and said, "Doug, a customer is here; come in and show the property please."

Show the property?

Yes, they sell this like real estate. Which, I guess, technically it is. But I wasn't prepared to be taken around in a golf cart and given the sales pitch.

Doug drove me around the office and up a hill. He pulled over, we got out, and as we walked he gave me his pitch. "It's one of the best values in the area," he said. "It goes up in value every year. You're making a wise decision to buy now, to lock in the savings. It will cost far more in the future, when you actually need it. Also, it makes sense not to burden your heirs with having to do this for you."

He stopped, pointed to an area with no markers, and said, "This is a lovely section, with several nice sites left. From here you have both mountain and valley views."

Mountain and valley views?

He's selling me a view lot!

Um...how well can you enjoy this view from SIX FEET UNDER?

But I didn't say that. I know he's talking about the view for the people who will come to visit. Us, for now, when we pay respects to my mom. Perhaps some day in the future, Chris and Tommy will come to pay respects to MBW and I. Chris will turn to Tommy and say, "That's vintage Dad. Even dead, he has to have a nice view."

Or maybe they'll have moved far away, and it won't matter.

I went ahead and bought the property. The view lots. Paid cash. Gave the manager my mothers' ashes. She was laid to rest a few days later. There was no ceremony - we've already done that, exactly as she wished. No, this was for me, for my boys, for some small sense of family, of heritage, of history.

A few weeks later her marker was set.  One of many. Meaningful to us.  No one else.

So each Spring, on Memorial Day, we go up there and place flowers on her grave. Say a few words. Develop a family tradition, coming up on three years old.

It's weird, in a way, to stand on the place where you know, one day, you are going to be laid to rest. I don't know if we will move someday, buy a new house, a vacation property, whatever. I may live in many places, or I may never move again. But I have now bought my final home.

And I learned something else in this whole process that I found interesting.

It turns out you can buy one burial plot, but have two people buried in it. Doug explained it like this:

"You can, if you choose, bury two family members in the same plot. They will each have their own casket. When one person dies, they will be buried in the plot. When the second person dies, the grave will be dug up to just above the first casket, and the second casket laid just over the top of the first one."

"It's more economical," he said. "Many couples choose this option. Some have said they want to be as close in eternity as they were in life."

Personally, I think once you're dead, none of that matters. But you never know.

So that day nearly three years ago I bought two plots. One for my mom. And one for MBW and I. It was the economical choice. Those view lots are pretty pricey.

It's statistically likely that I will die before MBW. Hopefully, not soon. But when that day comes, she knows where to put me. And I'll wait there until her time comes as well. I hope she takes a long time to join me.

But when it finally happens, I told her how it's going to play out. When her time finally comes, they're going to dig all the way down and get my box out of the ground. She's going in first. Then they're going to open my casket, flip me over, close me back up and put me down on top.

She smiled when I told her.

That night we ‘celebrated the joy of being alive,' if you get my drift. We both had a chuckle, afterward, thinking about that position for eternity.

I read a quote once, somewhere -‘You're a long time dead.'

To that, I would add, "So you might as well make sure your ‘final position' is comfortable."

From a view lot, no less!

 

I love to ski.  I've been skiing for almost 40 years.  I first learned to ski when I was six years old on the frozen, icy slopes of Labrador Mountain, about 45 minutes south of Syracuse, New York.  Every Sunday morning my dad would wake me up at 6:00 AM, we'd have breakfast and then we'd head off to the mountain for Dawn Patrol - 8:00 AM to Noon.  I still remember the red lift tickets we'd put on our parkas, riding up the T-Bar lift together, the way my dad would teach me to ski, help me get better while still having fun.  I remember going into the lodge after several run and sipping hot cocoa by one of the fireplaces in the lodge.

I'll never forget the time we spent together on those cold Sunday mornings.

Little did I know my dad, in the process of teaching me to ski, also taught me one of his principles of life - choose those sports you can enjoy your whole life.  I would come to learn he called them ‘Lifelong sports.'

As a child those weekly ski trips were a great time to bond with my father.  Over and above the skiing, I enjoyed the time my dad spent with me.  I learned to enjoy being outdoors, in the fresh air, sharing a recreation experience with my dad.

Now it's my turn to do the teaching, to create the memories I have for my own kids.  My wife is a partner in this, and feels the same way I do.  When we go skiing as a family we're doing three things.  First, we're teaching our kids that spending time outdoors participating in a sport is a fun activity to do.  Second, we're showing our kids that we value spending time together as a family and we enjoy doing things with our children.  An third, which our kids will not appreciate until they are much older, that learning to ski at an early age will provide the opportunity to participate in a recreational activity they can enjoy their whole life.

I can already anticipate the emails I will receive.  Yes, skiing is a very expensive sport and not everyone can afford to ski every weekend the way we do.  I understand that.  We are fortunate to live so close to some of the best skiing in the country, if not the world.  And it is because we live so close, and because we believe so strongly in being active in the outdoors, and partly because of the experiences I had as a child with my dad, that we as a family have decided to make the investment in skiing that we have.  Sure, it's a lot of money.  Yes, there are other things we could do with the money we spend/invest of skiing.  No doubt we are extremely fortunate to be in a position to be able to make that choice.  But we choose to do this for the reasons I just mentioned, as well as one more.  I want to offer to my kids what my dad offered to me - the chance to enjoy and become proficient in a sport they can enjoy their entire life.

Earlier this season Tommy and I rode up the ski lift with a 76-year-old man.  He told us he skies an average of 250 days a year.  I asked him how he could do that - we don't have snow here that long.  He told me he goes over to Europe and skies glaciers in the summer, and occasionally goes to New Zealand in the summer for skiing ‘Down Under.'  I was impressed with how fit and vigorous this man was, and his passion for skiing.  Afterwards Tommy asked me, "Dad, will I be able to ski when I'm that old?"  I told him, "I hope so!"  He replied, "Good, because I love skiing!"

So far, our plan is working.

On this particular Saturday Alta was hosting an amateur ski race.  A slalom course was set up and it was open to anyone who wanted to pay a nominal entry fee.  Chris asked if he could enter and I told him he absolutely could race.  He had never run slalom gates before - in fact, I don't think he even knew what he had signed up to do. But he's a gamer, and is up to try just about anything related to sports.  So we signed him up and he got his official racing bib, which made him very happy.

We rode up the lift and made our way to the race course.  It was a typical slalom course, set up for amateur racers.  A reasonably simple hill, gates spaced evenly, with official starting gates at the top.  Chris took his place in line, and when it was his turn, off he went.  He made his first run without falling or missing a gate, and clocked a first run time of just over 40 seconds. 

At the bottom I asked him if he had fun.  He said he loved it and asked if he could to it again.  I told him racers get two runs, and he said, "I'll bet I can get a better time on my next run!"

And sure enough, he did.  He came in nearly a second faster than his first run.

Unfortunately for Chris, he did not medal in this race.  He finished fourth - but his age bracket was 7-10 years of age and he is only 7.  So in the next couple of years he'll be a force to be reckoned with on the race course of Alta.  Don't believe me?  Check out the video on the Multimedia page of this website under Running the Gates or click here.

Lifetime sports. 

At age 5 and 7, my kids are well on their way to possibly develop a lifelong love of skiing.  And even if they choose at some point not to participate any more, that will be fine.  I will have done my best to expose them to the opportunity, and it will be up to them to determine if they want to continue at some point.  At least they will have that choice.  Who knows, maybe someday Chris, Tommy or both will have the wonderful memories that I have of skiing with my dad.  Maybe they will also one day have the memories I am making now, of teaching my children how to ski and love being outdoors.

If they have that, I will be thrilled.

And if Chris should win a World Cup in slalom in 2014, that's just icing on the cake!