Memorials, Celebrations and Pilgrimages

This page is best viewed when the browser window is wide enough for three pictures to show across the horizontal. If your screen is not big enough for this, then size it to show just one picture on each row. Click here for a 6MB very low quality Quicktime movie of Stephanie in Spokane on New Years 2001 (be prepared to wait!).

Stephanie passed away on June 9, 2001, at home in Pittsburgh with her family and many friends around her. A few days after her death Garth sent out a sad announcement to her "Steph Trackers" email list. You may read this (3 MB, picture filled, PDF format) message by clicking here.

On the page in front of you is a set of pictures telling a little of the memorials, celebrations and family pilgrimages we have taken on her behalf since her death.

Pittsburgh, shortly after Stephanie's death

I took no pictures until the third day after Stephanie's death. On that day we held a Zen ceremony celebrating Stephanie at her home. One part of that ceremony was to construct a display centered on Stephanie's ashes, including at least a picture, white flowers, a favorite food, a candle and various things important to her or to our memories of her. These pictures show you some of the things we assembled. I'll highlight only a few. Draped over her ashes is the scarf from the sari she wore at our wedding reception. The book of a Zen teacher from California who had only a week before come to meet and visit Stephanie at our home. A small bowl of Belgian chocolats -- her favorite. A persian rug her parents brought back from the Middle East. Our wedding candle. Her favorite black clay pottery, Buffalo Man. The necklaces she wore most days. Her medicine bowl and its talismans. And, of course, the pink flamingo with the internal light bulb that we kept in our front window.

Fourteen days after she died we held a memorial service at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh. Attended by a few hundred people, some travelling far, some having known and loved her in walks of life new to her family and me, some who never met her but were touched by the things she did and said, some who had been with Stephanie day to day over the years in Pittsburgh, and over the last few days of her life. While I was much too distracted to take any pictures, I poured my heart into the memorial service and I can share the program (about 1MB in PDF format). Click here.

Tacoma, 49 days after Stephanie's death

In the buddhist tradition there is another ceremony 49 days after death. We held this ceremony in Tacoma, Washington state, at the home of her parents Mike (a.k.a. Shelley) and Barbara. I took pictures of the pictures Charlee had taken of Stephanie and her mother, sister Staci and father for the Stephanie Project. I also captured the memorial display that we constructed for this ceremony. The calligraphy names Stephanie with the Buddhist name given to her after her death by the teachers with whom she was studying the Buddhist precepts. It reads "Jifu Myoshin" which means "Bright Heart, Compassionate Breeze."

Puget Sound, one resting place for Stephanie

From Mike and Barbara's home, we made a short trip to the shores of Puget Sound to honor the first of Stephanie's requests for dispersing her ashes: the sound of pacific ocean in Washington state. I was overdressed I guess, and practicality made me quite the sight.

Olympic pennisula, on Stephanie's WA pilgrimage

In one of those cosmic coincidences that make you wonder about everything, Stephanie's Christmas 2000 gift to my parents, Ron and Mary, was a two week guided trip to her favorite places in Washington state. Planned for July 24 through Aug 7, Stephanie was still modifying the details of this trip in the last week of her life. When it became clear that the 49 day ceremony fell in the middle of this trip and that most of the places at which she wanted her ashes spread were part of this trip, the trip became a pilgrimage for us. Though bitter-sweet, we treasure the beauty and glory of the places Stephanie sent us to visit: oceans, rainforests, volcanos, mountain valleys, great rivers, and family and family history.

Methow Valley, North Cascades, on Stephanie's WA pilgrimage

The Methow Valley is the home of all of Stephanie's grandparents, the place in which her parents were raised and married, and a place in which Stephanie and Staci vacationed and visited family while they grew up in Spokane. This trip was the first time my parents met Stephanie's grandparents and we did it up right. Click here for a huge (11 MB) low quality Quicktime video of us singing while we waited for our outdoor barbeque rib dinner.

On the picture of the mural of the valley's mountains and rivers you can find Slate Peak, one of the highest points accessible without burro or backpack, and Eightmile Creek, where beautiful pine forests line the creek under the ridge. These were two places that Stephanie asked us to disperse her ashes. The middle picture of the first three shows the pine forest near Eightmile Creek where we buried her medicine bowl in the style recommended by a Navaho shaman in Arizona. The other five pictures were taken at Slate Peak showing us and the picture of Stephanie we carried with us, the small cairn we built on the top of Slate Peak over the Robinson valley, and the larger Methow Valley floor.

Slate Peak views

Many of the resting places for Stephanie's ashes were the graves of those of her ancestors that she knew. We also made these sad and special visits to Methow Valley cemetaries during the first week of August.

Priest Lake, Idaho, 9/29, Stephanie's last resting place

Kalispell Island on Priest Lake in Idaho is the resting place of the ashes of Stephanie's Aunt Sharon, and now, the last of Stephanie's ashes. On Saturday September 29, 2001, Stephanie's cousin Rick, Aunt Sharon's son, led Stephanie's parents Michel (Shelley or Mike) and Barbara, Aunt Betty, sister Staci and husband, Garth, to the last tree on the southeast point of the island. We hung a set of Tibhetan prayer flags, read a buddhist koan, rang Stephanie's buddhist bells, placed flowers at the base of the tree, distributed her ashes and said a few words to and of her. Unbeknowst to us, a foot or two from the site at which Aunt Sharon's ashes were dispersed was a large heart shaped rock. For Stephanie, finding heart rocks on a mountain walk was a joyous omen. Standing tall over this stunning lake, at the tip of the island, great pine trees provide gentle shade for Stephanie and her Aunt Sharon.

Click here for a huge (11 MB) low quality Quicktime video of us quietly looking out over the lake after setting the last of Stephanie's ashes to rest.

Combermere Ontario Can, 10/14, a garden memorial

In the middle of October Garth drove to Combermere in Canada to join his brothers and father in the summer cottage closing work. It was the height of the fall colors. I was reminded of the year before at about the same time when Stephanie and Garth decided to go up to Combermere to see the colors. Garth's brothers and their families joined Garth's parents and a brother's inlaws in a wonderful fall weekend. We sat up late talking, we walked in the colors, and we woke up to a slight drifting of snow. Stephanie was very happy.

Stephanie's ability to reach out and touch people deeply is legendary with me. In only a few special times with my Aunt Nancy, Uncle Barry and cousins Tim and Doug and their families, Stephanie made strong connections. Their memorial to her would have touched her deeply -- a garden on the grounds of their cottage next door to my parent's cottage.

A Stephanie memorial composite-picture

The picture below is a composite of seven pictures I want to share with you. In the upper left is a picture of Stephanie at about 13000 feet above sea level in the Andes of Peru on the third day of our honeymoon walk to Machu Picchu in July 1999. In the middle on the left is Stephanie on our hike on the top of Sandia Peak at the end of April 2001, five weeks before she died. On the bottom on the left is her family, Barbara, Staci and Mike, holding a picture of Stephanie at the top of Slate Peak in the North Cascades of Washington state on the day we distributed some of her ashes. At the top right is a picture of the image of Stephanie taken by Charlee Brodsky in the Stephanie Project and used as the center of the June 17 memorial service held for Stephanie at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh. In the middle on the right is the memorial display from the 49th day after death Zen ceremony held in Tacoma Washington at her parent's home before distributing some of her ashes in the Puget Sound. The bottom on the right is Garth at Slate Peak in July holding the picture of Stephanie that we carried to the top of the mountain on the day we distributed some of her ashes there. Finally, in the middle is a picture of Stephanie with her niece Meg and nephew Max in her dining room in Pittsburgh on a Sunday morning in March 2001 during a visit from Garth's brother Steve and his wife Andrea and their children. Ask us about Stephanie's trip to attend Max's birth sometime.

In the four pictures of Stephanie I see the love of life with which she filled the last years of her life. In the four mountain pictures I see her attachment to rugged wilderness and to her familyÕs heritage in the Cascade mountains. And in the four images featuring images of Stephanie I see the poignant love her family and I have for her.