Friday, July 20, 2012

Ashes at sea

We threw flowers into the water and had a Bailey's toast.


Last month, a group of us boarded a boat in the Outer Banks and headed out to sea. We were there to scatter Mike's ashes. To honor his wishes.

I wrote about my experience with Julia on the Daily Mail Mommyhood blog. You can read it here.

These are the words I spoke that night ....

I know the exact moment I laid eyes on Mike Cherry for the first time. It was May of 2000 and I had just started as an intern at the Daily Mail. Mike drove by the newspaper in his brand-new Honda S2000. Another reporter told me: That's Mike Cherry. He covers WVU for us. He just bought that car, but he lives in an apartment without a stove.

Two years later, Mike would give me the keys to that car, so I could drive here to the Outer Banks. The first night I got here we stayed up late, sitting on the beach, talking, and he finally kissed me. And that was pretty much it for us. This is the place where our story began.

Over the years, we would come back here many times. We got married here. We brought our baby here for her first vacation.

So it seems fitting that our story will end here.

And while it didn't have the happy ending we wanted, our story had so much happy. So much happy.

Today, I am feeling grateful to Mike for giving me all of you, for giving me sisters, for making me an aunt, and for giving me the most precious gift of all, Julia.

I am grateful for all the moments in between.


The evening had been overcast, but the sun came out just as we were scattering the ashes.