Isla Mujeres
There were three days between Coleen’s final evening and the first day of her arrangements and they were very busy and hectic. People at the house, coming and going, Lots of talking, crying, emotions. Making plans for her wake then the funeral service. Lindsay, Karen and I spent a couple hours with the funeral director making decisions about dates, times, death notices, urns and so many other items. The next day Lindsay and I met with Mother Liza, the dean of our church who would be performing the funeral service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We talked about Coleen a great deal and selected readings and hymns.It seemed that there were people at our house around the clock. Lots of food was given to us by neighbors and friends, lots of mouths to feed. One of the many activities that was crucial to properly remembering Coleen was to make some poster board sized photo collages. It seemed that everyone had a hand in that and we needed them all. We have so many photos! Drawers, boxes, albums full and that didn’t include what I had on CD’s, hard drives and my iPhone. This was a daunting task.
We spent hours pouring over the collection, setting aside the special photos that we wanted to consider for the finished product. We went all through the last 33 years or so plus the childhood photos that her parents brought over. The vacations, holidays, birthdays, parties and just living life in general. At times it was a lot of fun to look back at that and other times so emotional that I had to look away or leave the room. My God, what a life we had together.
I kept waiting to uncover a specific photo. It was one of my favorite pictures of her. It was taken just before she turned 30. We were on vacation in Cancun and we took a ferry to a tiny island called Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) for the day. Once there, we rented a moped scooter and spent the day buzzing around the island and it’s beautiful beaches. Somehow we found this little seaside restaraunt called Maria’s and stopped there for lunch. This is where Coleen would have been able to enhance this story because her memory for details was unequaled and she would be able to recite exactly what she had for lunch and what wine she was drinking. I don’t remember for certain but I believe there were margaritas and a bottle of Pouilly-Pouisse on the table at different times that day at Maria’s. And we had fish and salad and a wonderful day. I almost crashed that moped once or twice after lunch but we managed to find our way back to the ferry and to Cancun. In the photo, Coleen was sitting at our table in her swimsuit and sunglasses, she had a drink in her hand, a red flower in her hair and one of those big Coleen smiles. She was beautiful.
During the photo collage process, I tried to keep calm waiting for that photo to materialize but it never did. I decided not to stress about it, that it was here somewhere and got missed with all the people looking through things and mixing stuff up. We ended up with three huge poster boards and could easily have had twice that many. There were wonderful photos of her. Just not that one from Maria’s.
On the second day after Coleen’s funeral service, I was up early. Her urn was on our dining room shelves kind of crowded with some other things and I wanted to give it some space. I started moving some of the shelf occupants around and saw on the top shelf another photo box. I remembered putting that up there several years ago under Coleen’s direction and remembered that it was empty. So I grabbed it and was surprised by it’s weight. I brought it down and took off the lid and saw it was full of photos. I reached inside and pulled out a fistful and looked at the one on top. You can probably guess.
I have a theory about that. About finding that box, about finding that one photo in that whole box of photos with my first try. About trying so hard to find it during those previous days.
I wasn’t supposed to find it then. Not when there so much commotion, so many people, so many other photos that it could have gotten lost in the shuffle. Instead, I was supposed to find it that morning when I was all by myself, when there were no other photos or people around to distract me. So Coleen and I could be alone together with it. And remember that beautiful day.
I was talking about this story and this photo and describing it the other day to my new friend, Jo. She asked me if I knew what it meant for a girl to have a flower in her hair. I said that I didn’t. Jo smiled at me and said, “It means she’s spoken for. She’s taken.” I liked that. And I like to think she’s still spoken for.
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