Data At Home

As you may have figured out from Brett’s photo post, last week we were away on “vacation” in England and Egypt. I use quotes here because although our trip included sightseeing, and even some rest and relaxation, the purpose of our trip was, in fact, to honor my dad’s final wish.

Long before his death, we knew that dad wanted to have his ashes in The Nile in Egypt, more specifically in the part of The Nile that runs through Luxor. This city, once the ancient city of Thebes, is home to the Luxor and Karnak temples, Valley of the Kings, Colossi of Memnon, Deir el-Bahri temple and is enveloped by the incredibly rich culture and history of the Egyptian people. Dad and my mom spent time vacationing in Egypt, and he was fascinated by all that it had to offer. Although he was not very religious, dad had a deep sense of spirituality, and felt strongly that he had a connection to Egypt, transcended from a previous life. His belief in reincarnation and the idea that death was really only the beginning at times seemed unusual and difficult to grasp, but that was part of what made my dad special – he was larger than life; an old soul who understood the transient nature of the world. It was one of the things that I loved most about him, and it is one of the things that has comforted me in my grief.
When dad died, we knew that the best way we could honor his life was to fulfill his wish. So mom planned for us – me, her, Em, Brett, and a couple who have long been close family friends – to travel to Egypt for a private memorial service. We would use the opportunity to spend a few days in England, too, as Brett had never been and Em and I hadn’t been in almost 10 years. We expected the trip to be a wonderful experience.

It was more than that. We had amazing weather (warm and sunny in England – who knew?!), wonderful sightseeing, easy flights, and so much more. We came together as a family. And we did exactly what he asked of us – we hired a felucca, an Egyptian sailboat, for a late afternoon sail on The Nile. We laughed. We cried. We told stories of the wonderful man we knew. And as the warm sun set over the West Bank, and the felucca captain sang a prayer in Arabic, we scattered dad’s ashes, giving him a final resting place, none so fitting than in a land of overwhelming pride, history, and everlasting spirit.

I don’t think that much more can be said about the trip, or that I can say much more… I’m still absorbing it all. What I will say is that we had a wonderful time, and I hope that, insh’Allah, I’ll be able to visit Luxor again someday soon. But most importantly, I’m just so happy to know dad is where he most wanted to be.

<3 J

I’m wholly dissatisfied with my photos from London today, so to make up for it on some level I am testing out a new WordPress plugin that will display my photos directly from my SmugMug gallery.  If this works nicely, I plan to incorporate it into the eventual redesign of my site.

Update: That didn’t work at all… So here are the photos in normal format.

Julia and I are in England with Julia’s sister and mother.  We will leave for Egypt on Tuesday.  I’ll let Julia post with more detail, but in the meantime, here are some photos from Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Lacock.  Click “there’s more to…” to see them all, or visit my SmugMug.

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