‘Delivered A Bit Of Bermuda To The Grave’
A Canadian writer — who said his mother-in-law always dreamed of seeing her “fantasy island” Bermuda but died before she had the chance — has told how he and his wife visited Bermuda and took a small bag of the island’s sand with them to “deliver a bit of Bermuda” to her grave.
The Windsor Star’s Gord Henderson wrote: “Catherine, my late mother-in-law, never made it to her fantasy island. The dream of seeing Bermuda, the one and only item on her bucket list, died with her when her heart gave out in 1999, just days before the millennium she was so eager to witness.
“This week, in a belated and forlorn attempt to set it right, my wife and I delivered a bit of Bermuda to Catherine’s grave at Heavenly Rest in South Windsor. The small plastic bag, filled with fine, white sand scooped from tranquil Grotto Bay on Bermuda’s north coast, must have made quite the initial impression when airport security scanned our luggage.
“Still, we learned one thing from this too-brief expedition. Catherine was on the right track in wanting to see Bermuda. That tiny fishhook-shaped chain of limestone islands perched atop the dead rim of an ancient volcano far out in the Atlantic Ocean, more than a thousand kilometres off the coast of North Carolina, is something special.”
“I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like in its tourism ‘heyday’ of the 1950s and 1960s because it’s still a gem…” said Mr Henderson. Calling Bermuda “pure eye-candy”, the writer said the “old-fashioned politeness and warmth” in Bermuda is “like no other place I’ve been.”
He ends the article by saying his mother-in-law would have “cherished this place.” Read the full article here on the Windsor Star.
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I fully expected the story to be about the PLP’s failures. My condolenes to the family.
This is the kind of tourism advertising you can’t buy, or lie, about.
Bermudians i think you guys are so lucky. some of you need to travel to the smaller islands of the west indies to truly appreciate you’ll island. you guys are a nice people but when i read some of the comments on some topic i know you don’t know how lucky you’ll are.
I agree with you. We do take our island for granted. It is sad that even positive stories are tainted with the bitterness of others.
To the family thank you for helping to completeing your moms bucket list. We hope you will come back and enjoy Bermuda some more for her.
During my tourism years I had a trip which involved a burial. Ashes.
The couple had been very frequent return visitors, staying at the same hotel each time & getting to know some of the staff very well over the years.
He passed away & had asked that his ashes be scattered in Bermuda. Out we went to a quiet cove, along with a few of their hotel staff friends. We anchored. His wife said a few words & sprinkled his ashes overboard.
A very memorable trip for me. These are the kinds of visitors we have lost in more ways than one.
What a wonderful gesture, I do hope you and your wife get to come back to visit and bring friends. Another addition may be to bring along one of your mother-in-law’s deserving best friends or reletives who are still with us to enjoy the trip in her place.
My mother-in-law loved Bermuda as well and traveled there a few times over the years then just over a week before her last planned trip to the island in May of 2011 she passed away. She too will have her ashes scattered in Bermuda in due course. A family trip will be planned for those other family members that she told so much about the isalnd but never did get to visit. I am proud to be a Bermudian!