R.I.P. Granddaddy

My grandfather passed away at the end of March and a couple weekends ago, the family headed down to Panama City to spread his ashes in the Gulf of Mexico, minutes from the condo where he and my grandmother have lived the last twenty-something years. I have never experienced an "ash-spreading" before so I wasn't sure what to expect. One of my grandmother's friends was gracious enough to take the entire family out on his boat (I don't know at what point you stop saying "boat" and start saying "yacht" but this thing was brand new and massive...two bedrooms!) so we could share the moment together and make an outing out of it. I thought we were going to go a couple miles out in the ocean but as soon as we left the marina and the bay heading into the gulf, we rounded the jetty's at St. Andrews state park into the most beautiful clear, aqua-blue water I have seen in PC in quite awhile. At once everyone on the boat decided we were at the perfect spot...I was glad we stayed so close in, close to his home, close to the places he's gone fishing, close to where his kids and grandkids played in the ocean. It was perfect. Words were spoken, tears fell then my uncle poured the ashes in the water and we all threw flowers. The water was so clear, you could see them float for a bit then sink into the water, the flowers following the cloud as it moved with the current. It was truly beautiful. You can actually see the shadow of the ashes on the bottom of the ocean if you look closely at the picture above...that was how clear the water was. Beautiful! So beautiful, in fact, we couldn't help but jump in and go for a swim. I would like to think Granddaddy was right there with us playing in the water and enjoying one last swim with his family. Perfect ending....

I won't go into the fact that the minutes after we jumped in the water, the ladder dropped off the boat because we drifted in too shallow and had to do a massive family ocean rescue just as a huge thunderstorm was blowing into the gulf...pandemonium! Just know we are all safe and I bet my granddad was laughing his ass off!