ASHES TO ASHES

Like I said , I am the caretaker of the ashes of my dear friend. What's left over anyway after his best girl scattered them all around. My plan is to make a medicine bag, all ornate with the shit he liked, put his ashes in it and hang it on our stage deck...where he liked to play.
But, as an added responsibility, I have to offer these ashes to the friends that the original caretaker didn't get to. The first one I talked to had no interest, he was "past it". OK...I thought, you'd consider getting the alamo tattooed across your back in tribute but you don't want any of his dust...to be fair that alamo thing was right around the time of his death, and he might not be as sentimental as I am about dead friends...or maybe he has another place to put lost friends. I don't know, but I respect his stand and his feelings and let it go.
But he was the one that I asked first, because I thought he would be the one to have that kind of reverence. Don't get me wrong...he's reverent enough and he loved Mark. He's just over it.
It was awkward...for me anyway.
I left a voice mail for one of the others tonight...so I don't know about him yet.
But sunday night I got into my old stash of druggy day shit and filled a glass gram vial with the ashes of Mark and took it to work with me, sure that his friend would want it. And he didn't. So I walked around all day with a gram of Mark in my pocket. It was kind of like "take your dead friend to work today"...very strange.
I got some of him on my fingers while I was filling the vial, and that was even stranger.
I tried to shake him off, but just like when he was still with us, that was impossible.
And what initially seemed like a really sweet gesture from a girl that I love with all my heart suddenly carries the weight of the world.