Bittersweet memories
My dear gran died 3 years ago, and being thousands of miles away I couldn't go back to the UK for the funeral.
Mum had already emailed me the funeral service and speeches that were happening.
On the morning of the funeral, I woke up at 3:am (bear in mind there's an 8 hour time difference!) and drove to Newport Beach Pier.

I had a blanket and candles, and some flowers to throw in the ocean. Because I had the funeral service schedule at hand, I was pretty much able to follow it - at one point a cop tried to kick me off the beach as it's closed at that time but he let me get on with what I was doing after I explained to him - anyway.

While my gran was being burned, I threw flowers into the ocean while watching the sunrise, and admired the seagulls. They were at the oceanline, and they suddenly flew off apart from one gull. He was sick and dying, and at the point in the funeral when gran was being cremated, the seagull was engulfed by the sea and carried off.

I maintain that to this day, that seagull was the spriit of my granny whom I loved dearly. She was letting me know she was still around.
That memory of watching the sunrise and a dying gull while mourning gran will always stay with me and I have not been back to that section of beach since.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 12 Mar 2005, 8:37, Reply)