I used to be Catholic. It was an artifact of my childhood, when except for a brief time, I was Catholic on Easter and maybe Christmas. I gave Catholicism up in early adulthood when it warred with my budding feminism, which remains, although it is more nuanced than it was when I was 20. I became a Friend (Quaker), and later developed agnosticism, which is looked at askance by atheists and Christians, but so be it. (Note: Agnosticism and Quakerism are not necessarily exclusive, so I still consider myself Quaker).

All this preface exists to throw in another contradiction: I miss Ash Wednesday. Not because one gets marked on the forehead with ash, as much to show one’s membership in a specific religion as to commemorate the day, but as a way of honoring the inevitability of death. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …” (which is not what the priest intones when he marks the forehead with ashes, but I forget the actual formula).

We started from molecules in the muck like DNA and RNA, which became single-celled organisms, which combined to make multicelled organisms with specialized organelles, which evolved to become the teeming masses of animal and plant life. When we die, we denature and decay to muck again.

My loved ones will literally return me to ashes, rich in minerals that feed life, as I have chosen cremation as my burial method. I feel comforted that I will be returned to ashes, to be scattered in an undisclosed location. I hope I will be useful, that I will build soil with minerals just as my soul will remain in stories told.

Someone will read the previous paragraph and mistakenly believe that I am close to death to be thinking about my demise and burial. I am not; although I am almost sixty years old, I expect to live a little while longer. I just think of death sometimes, on days like Ash Wednesday,