Point Lobos bench with urn, photos, driftwood, wine for toasting and a bottle of Chivas Regal for Hutch and Lynn.
We gathered. We prayed for the souls of the three Owen siblings who left this earth in 2010...first Frankie (Frances Owen Kelsey) in February, then Cliff (Clifford Owen) in June and finally Lynn in December. May they rest in peace. Psalm 23 was read..."To waters calm me gently leads/restore my soul doth he." Robinson Jeffer's poem Continent's End was read..."the tides are in our veins." We poured a libation on the ground to placate the earth spirits. We talked of Lynn, the Owens and the profound bond between Lynn and sister Frankie. We raised a toast. We scattered Lynn's ashes and returned to Mother Ocean the hunk of driftwood that Lynn and Hutch adopted as a Salish Sea totem for the motor vessel Monte Carlo. We met for dinner in Carmel at the Forge in the Forest and talked long into the evening.
Cousins
From left to right: Jim DeChalk, Dee Kelsey DeChalk, Stefanie Kelsey, Josh Kelsey, Levi Kelsey, Big Josh Kelsey, Jim Healy, Rebecca, Chris, Nick, Paige, Robin, Jane
Owen Cousins: Jim Healy (stepson of Cliff Owen), Chris, Dee (daughter of Frankie Owen Kelsey), Robin
Walking to the point to return Lynn's ashes to the earth, just as, nine months earlier, her soul was returned to God .
A libation in memory of Hutch whose ashes we scattered off Point Lobos 25 years earlier.
The driftwood hunk being returned to the sea. It is a symbol of Hutch and Lynn and their love of the Pacific Ocean. They found it in the wake of the MV Monte Carlo and placed it on the transom where it stayed for years..
My mom, the eternal scribbler, as far back as 1970, was thinking of the details of death. She must have copied this from an article she read.
Lynn and Frankie, Monterey, circa 1943.
From Lynn's diary: "Frankie Ann Kelsey. She is not only a sister but a friend. I have lovely thoughts best and warmest wishes for you. I always feel at home with you -- fun to be a round and easy to talk with. We grew up together yet we never outgrow each other. You are so many things but most of all a dear friend.
Map of Point Lobos State Reserve, Off Highway 1, just south of Carmel. The scatterting site is at Weston Beach, the first parking turnout past the Piney Woods intersection.
Carmel and Monterey. Lynn and Hutch met at Fort Ord, just north of Monterey, in the fall of 1943. He proposed to her on the Pearl Street Bridge in the El Estero Park of Monterey, and, four months after they met, they married at St. John's Chapel. Lynn's father died in Monterey in 1945 and her mother in Carmel in 1981; they are buried in the El Encinal Cemetery, Monterey. Lynn and Chris moved in with sister Frankie in Carmel in 1951 while Hutch served in Guam during the Korean War. Hutch and Frankie's husband, Jimmie Kelsey, were prodigious pals. We visited the Kelsey family in their Carmel home dozens of times during the 1950's and the 1960's. It was Hutch's wish to have his ashes scattered in Carmel Bay. It was right and necessary to join Lynn's ashes with the love of her life.
This place has a spiritual meaning for us who descend from Hutch and Lynn. The bay is a gravesite, at continent's end, where we can stop, remember, honor and toast our ancestors. If you are driving past, make it a point to visit Point Lobos and raise a toast for Lynn and Hutch and all who proceeded them.
