Dust and Ashes

I learned to drive on dirt roads, long before I was old enough. Long before my feet even reached the pedals. I let my own kids do the same. Find their way on a country gravel road or two ruts in a pasture. Last year, before my daughter had her permit we let her practice on the dirt roads on vacation. 

In the summer we always go to the mountains. The last few miles to wherever we stay, is always a stretch of dirt or gravel. This year, the big house my in-laws rented was even further up the mountain. It took at least fifteen minutes climbing slowly on washboard roads. At some point my husband even switched gears. The driving is slow, the tires often slipping. Our back windshield was completely covered in dirt and dust. It is actually harder to drive on the dirt than the pavement, but it somehow seems a safer place to learn.  Despite the dust, I can’t help but roll my window down and turn up the radio. We have since made the long trek home, all but the first few miles, paved.  And still, my husbands car, is covered in a fine layer of brown. We may have left the cool of the mountains for our hot Texas summer, but some of the mountains came home with us. 

You’d think that over 600 miles, at 75 miles per hour (or maybe a little bit more) would manage to blow it all off, but it remains. Turns out dust sticks. There is some science behind it, mostly that static electricity makes dust adhere to surfaces like cars and sandals and bookshelves. There is a literal charge to it. Dust doesn’t just settle, it clings. 

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Days before I headed to the moutains, I drove to the hill country. Several of us showed up. All in a very different place from six months ago. Then we were buried in our shock and loss and what ifs. The shock has worn off, life has carried on. Grief now fits like an old pair of shoes that we'd like to get rid of but can't bare to part with. We come back to say goodbye again in a beautiful place full of dust and rocks and rivers.

Her cousin read a few words and then stepped forward and spread a handful of  ashes. Only this little bit of her remained and this is exactly where she’d want to be. When it was my turn the ashes felt different than I expected. 

Not light and fine like burned paper or wood, but slightly course, gritty and more heft. More like a dense sand than fine layer of dust. I opened my hand, but only a little blew away. The weight of an entire life remained in my palm. I suppose this is why people say to scatter ashes. You have to literally release them. Let them go. Which is a lesson  I have recently been learning over and over again. 

After, my hand is still covered in a fine layer of dust.

I’m not sure what to do with it. It feels wrong to wipe them on my pants. 

I leave the residue on my hands. It clings to me, 

This place and these people have clung to me for decades and I’m better for it. 

Ashes make you let go and cling at the same time. 

I can’t think of a better picture of my grief. 

I walk the gravel path to my car and make my way down the hill. 

Past the dorm and the tennis courts and the catwalk. 

I wind my way back to the highway and home.

My car covered in hill country dust. 

Hours later I still see remnants of ashes in the crevices of my hand. 

In Genesis 18, Abraham argues and questions God’s choices. In an attempt to soften his pleas he couches his requests with this reminder (v. 18). 

“Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes…”

Neil deGrasse Tyson also calls us nothing but dust with a slightly different sentiment,  “We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”

On my best days, I am also nothing but dust and ashes. 

It is as much a humbling as it is an honor. 

Dusty roads. 

Star dust. 

Things left behind. 

Grief. Love.

Scattered. Clung to. 

Maybe the dust and ashes serve as a reminder that what we leave will always leave their mark on us (or our back windshield). 

That the people and places we let go of, will cling hard and true to our hearts. 

What we carry doesn’t have to weigh us down if we are willing to let it go.
I am nothing but dust and ashes. 

Just like the dusty roads I learned to drive on - they don’t only lead away.
Sometimes they lead us towards. 

I am everything, stardust, gravel roads and a handful of ashes. 

I have only just begun.

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