When Kody died by suicide, one of the most challenging parts for me was where he decided to do it. He picked a spot up by where he had camped while homeless. This is to me at least an especially forlorn looking part of the Mt. Loop Highway. The trees are more crowded in this area. There is an ugly metal pipe, jarring to look at among the nature all around. It is a spot that for Kody represented loneliness and failure. While struggling with my life after suicide loss, I have found it especially difficult to see how ugly this piece of forest is when compared to all the beauty around it.

Kody loved the river. When I imagined him after his death, I preferred the image of him on a rock by the river, at peace with a horrible decision to end his life. The place he actually chose is one that is unfathomable to me when the river is just across the way. I know in my heart that he felt he didn’t deserve the river. From both the logical standpoint of it being easier for someone to come across him by accident there and the feeling of guilt in his decision, he could not have chosen the river. Still for me, the spot is wrong.

When I decided that I was ready to spread the first part of his ashes, I knew that I had to reclaim the river for him. Kody was always into Norse mythology and Viking history. For this reason, I wrote letters to him, folded them into boats, and took them up to the river to float them down on fire. The operation was a little more challenging than I expected. Many of the boats tipped and the fire was immediately dosed. Vikings surely didn’t face such challenges. I loaded each of these boats with a pinch of ash.

When the boats sailed one by one, some far more graceful than others, I felt I could finally breathe for the first time since Kody’s death. Life after suicide loss felt initially a lot like holding a breath for longer than usual. A tightness held through my whole chest until that first moment the paper boats took off from the shore. Reclaiming the river for me, helped start a journey toward some form of healing. It removed him from the ugly bit of forest he chose and onto a space more correct for him and the life he led.