It is Sunday, May 23rd, 1999, and it was finally time. Cathy, my oldest daughter, and I boarded the 9:30 a.m. ferry to Vashon Island. What a gorgeous day, hand-picked for the occasion...without a cloud to be seen.

 

Puget Sound, in the northwestern tip of Washington State, is a massive delta nestled between two mountain ranges; the jagged Olympics to the West, and the rugged Cascades to the East. As we crossed the Sound to the Island, our famous Mt. Rainier slipped out from behind the neighboring hills and loomed in all her majesty in the distance. Then, as we docked and drove off the ferry, we turned and glanced North, and there was Mt. Baker, close to the Canadian border, also a part of the Cascade chain, spreading tall and stately in her pure white winter coat.

 

We started down the east side of the island, carefully watching for this particular spot that was to be Dustin's final resting place. As we rounded a curve, I suddenly got a strange feeling we were not alone in the car, and as I was explaining to Cathy what I was feeling, she suddenly pulled her van over to the left and parked in this beautiful little pullout that overlooked the Sound, and Mt. Rainier was now glowing in the morning sun to the southeast of us. She said, "This is it..." What luck! We didn't have to search the entire island.

 

Nobody was there, as we prepared our little ceramony. She had brought Dustin's cowboy hat, placed it on the rock that had an inscription on it, stating Vashon Island was discovered in 1792 by Capt. George Vancouver, and he named it after his friend, Capt. James Vashon. Her ashes were spread and we said both our oral and silent prayers and wished her a peaceful journey to her "life on the other side." We emptied our cameras taking pictures of this peaceful, picturesque, park-like setting.

 

We took our time, and after a while, we drove further south until a small bridge spanning a deep crevace where a narrow thread of sea water separated two islands, took us onto Maury Island, where Dustin had lived for a while in 1984. She and her husband lived on their boat in Quartermaster Harbor, where their son, Burton, named after the town of Burton, on Vashon Island, was born. Now, we were looking for the location of the last place they had lived, but there were so many side roads, it was nearly impossible. When we reached the southern tip of the island, we could see the Port of Tacoma, the Tacoma Dome, Federal Way to our left....so beautiful...I picked up three driftwood sticks of different sizes to take home and remind me of the three lost loved ones in my life: Dustin, her late husband, Bobby, and  Burton, wherever he may be...We lost all track of him after Bobbie passed away....

 

We started back toward the ferry landing, and as she drove, Cathy kept feeling that Dust was taking us on one last spiritual tour of her favorite island, because the van seemed to take this road, then that road, around and around we went, till we were back where we had started, as if Dust was riding with us, pointing the way. The silence was deafening, and we sensed her beckoning presence with each bend in the road.

 

Each of us wore clothes we had bought in Las Vegas, where Dust had lived for years; clothes we had worn to visit her in the hospital there, before we flew her home to Seattle to live out her last days...days toward her death that she faced so bravely. On our hands, we wore some of her favorite old rings, and placed her cowboy hat on the dashboard, and it seemed to guide us along our way....

 

 

And so, we bid farewell to my precious little cowgirl....her young life is now free from pain, suffering and a life of abuse and neglect through the hands of others...may God forgive them.....

 

....for she is at peace at last, close to her daddy, who arrived here many years before, when she and her two sisters also spread his ashes under the Vashon Island plaque....