Greg was cremated and my down-to-earth daughter set the cardboard box of his remains on the edge of her drafting table in the den, under a leftover dime store joke parking sign designating that space as reserved only for Greg. It sat for ages with only occasional notice until Alice’s cousin's wife offered we all go to their house for a last farewell. (We had already held memorial services on each coast to accommodate all his friends and family.) Greg had loved visiting this place along a ridge at the edge of Mariposa overlooking the central valley to the west.

We gathered on a windy weekend and watched from the porch as our cousin hiked down a ravine and climbed up onto a great boulder. There she lit a small cluster of sage leaves and feathers per a tradition she had read, spoke a poem she had found appropriate to Greg's life, and tossed handfuls of the gritty ashes across the wind. It took several throws to empty the box and each was its own cloudy spray like fireworks and smoke. We waited as she climbed back down (she skinned her knee) and shortly after, all set a garden flower on the earth underneath the young pine tree the kids had just planted near the house for him.

We have the pictures and memories of this but I wanted more of a marker. On a whim I wrote to England and "bought" a star in his name (or a name on a star), permanently recorded, they said, in a couple of places--one in Greenwich? It came with a colorful certificate and a celestial map with its coordinates. I ordered enough extras for Greg's mother and both his children. I just felt that Greg would have like to leave his mark somewhere on the universe.