My sister and I took off our shoes and waded out into the unseasonably warm water. In my hands was the box whose weight surprised me. My father's ashes.
It is a year, less a day, since Dad died.
I held the box as my sister unravelled it's packaging. A lively wind around us as I bend and pour what was left of him into to the Moray Firth.
We four stood back and watched as the tide took him from us finally. These many years of grief at an end. Tears of sadness and release.
It a beautiful day of strong sun and warm breezes, and the last time we will ever be in the same place.
The evening is spent as a family, in conversation, good food and wine and celebrating what we have still in a place of happy childhood memories that bring a little of him back.
Slowly I will remember him. I will remember the kind and gentle man before years of illness stole him.
I loved him, and I miss him.
