As my family has been instructed, I will be cremated upon my death and my ashes will be scattered in the Mt. Evans Wilderness Area, west of Denver. After that, who knows where I'll end up?
Perhaps a harsh winter will leave my remains entombed beneath a snow bank for several years, eventually providing nourishment for a young bristlecone pine. Absorbed by that long-lived tree, I may be part of its gnarled trunk for a thousand years or more, eventually re-entering the soil when the pine dies and crumbles. Now nourishing the grass of a mountain meadow, I could be consumed by a snowshoe hare and thence by a lynx or a golden eagle. Upon that predator's death, I would return to the wilderness, perhaps later flushed into the watershed of the South Platte via its North Fork, Bear Creek or Clear Creek. If not trapped in one of many reservoirs en route, I'll make my way down the Missouri, entering the Mississippi at St. Louis and then float down to the Gulf of Mexico. If caught up in the coastal marshes, I might be consumed by a wintering snow goose and then transported to the Arctic tundra for the summer. If not, I may swirl about the Gulf for a few years before drifting into the Caribbean and then out to sea. The Gulf Stream might deposit some of my remains on the shores of Iceland or the British Isles or, like Jonah, I might end up in the belly of a massive cetacean, stored in its blubber for decades. Eventually, after succumbing to humans, killer whales or old age, its carcass will rot on the ocean floor and I'll re-enter the marine ecosystem. Who knows, maybe a combination of ocean currents and tropical storms will transport my remnants to an exotic shore where, eons hence, compression, volcanism and uplift will place me atop another mountain range.
Of course, I could opt for embalming fluid and a cozy metal box beneath a manicured lawn. But why miss the adventure of nature's enduring cycle?
