We gave my mom a Viking send-off. She was an artist and kind of a free spirit, and she had always said she wanted to be sent off like the Vikings. So we decided we would do that for her.
Obviously we couldn’t do the whole thing (nor would we have wanted to, really) but my dad had her body cremated, and then a few weeks after her proper funeral, we had a separate get-together for her artist friends one afternoon. I made a small wooden boat, as Viking-like as I could manage, and we put a small portion of her ashes on her Viking ship and sent her down the river.
Funny thing... we did a couple of tests with pieces of random branches, and they kept drifting to the side of the river and getting snagged. So we didn’t know if it would work. But we had the boat, and all her friends were there, so we just decided to go ahead. And you know what? That little Viking ship, flaming brightly, went straight to the middle of the river like it knew what it was doing, and kept right on, all the way out of sight. I’ll never forget that.
What a great story. Bless you and bless your mom.
And what a memorable send-off!
Where else could we get a great story like that, but on FR!