Her Mother's Last Wish Was to Have Her Ashes Shot Into the Sky

In the Washington Post Magazine, Janna Bialek writes about her mother's death.

Finally, it was time to say goodbye. Each of the four children took a small blowtorch, lit for us by our spouses. Miraculously and without incident, we walked up to the four fuses of the rockets whose forward canisters held her and lit the ends, then walked away. Successive whooshes came from the four rockets that carried her ashes into the Iowa sky. A long white tail of pinpoint lights rose and detonated the explosives, but the canisters holding her didn’t explode until the third and fourth stages, popping around with little white screams. The smoky, carbon-smelling clouds rained down motes over the grass, the driveway, on my shoulders and in my hair. We hugged tight and felt the shift.