Journey to Freedom - Part Two

"...a time to tear and a time to mend..." Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Yesterday was a perfect day. Almost! It was one of those heavenly days where the weather was perfect, the sun was shining and the seas were perfectly calm. At least most of the time!

It was also a very emotional time for my family. You see it was Alexis' Birthday. Alexis is my middle daughter and yesterday she would have been 28 years old. She never made it to her birthday. She died on February 6th and our family had made the decision to have her cremated.

We did that because we believe that is what Alexis would have wanted and because we wanted to keep a part of her close - her ashes. When she died we ordered a beautiful paper mache' holder for her ashes.

This past week we were trying to decide how we wanted her birthday/memorial to unfold. We knew that we wanted to have a ceremony at sea because Alexis was a certified diver and loved the ocean. We have two friends who are boat captains, one with his own sailboat and the other with access to motor boats of all sizes.

After going back and forth a bit, Jennifer and Suzannah (my oldest and youngest daughters) decided on the sailboat excursion.

I had forgotten about the mache we had chosen until we picked it up from my friends at Boyds Family Funeral Home and opened up the box to check it out. Painted on the top was a sailboat. At that moment we knew we had made the right decision.

At 4:00 pm we set sail from Miami and headed towards the Bahamas. Miami was always Alexis favorite city. It is where she modeled did most of her partying. She loved the night-life.

We left from Dinner Key Marina and went about 1.5 hours out (past the stilt houses). It got a little rough at one point and we decided to turn around and head back. We didn't want to put Alexis out in such rough waters. Her life had been rough enough. And we also knew that we probably would not go that far out to visit her. So we decided to have her ceremony between 3 historic stilt houses built in the ocean about a mile from the marina. It was absolutely breathtaking.

My husband planned a beautiful ceremony complete with words from the bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 which begins "There is a time for everything..." We gently put her memorial out to sea, followed by a long trail of rose petals and 28 hot pink long-stem roses all 14 people on board tossed into the ocean in memory of Alexis.

The boat captain, Conrad and his wife Carol were the perfect host and hostess. My family and I will be forever grateful to them for all the care they took to make us feel at home.

Alexis loved a good "party." She had an infectious laugh and joie de vive and she loved to be the center of attention. She sure was yesterday. Although it was a little on the sober side, I believe she would have enjoyed her day.

It was a beautiful day.

Heidi Richards Mooney