Sunset came at 7:59, right on schedule.

The last remnants of the day filtered away, and the sky turned amber, then crimson. And we started lighting the lanterns. Just a few at first. We'd save the last for later. After.

The lanterns puffed up, their ricepaper envelopes ballooning, and straining toward the sky. Releasing the first, its ambition to flight seemingly premature, it sunk toward the ground, skipped, then floated, at first an inch, then a foot, and then into the air, gently offshore and away.

After quite a while the light that flickered under our first lantern-ballon gave its last gasp. The remaining heat in the balloon continued to bear it aloft, and dwindling in size, it eventually faded from view.

It seemed obvious that this was the right time, and I walked forward, taking my first steps into the sea, until the waves lapped at my knees.

As I stood there in the surf, my pants swished around my calves as the water rushed in, and rushed out again. In and out. In. And out.

My dad had given it to me just a little while before, and I had carried it to the water with me. Tiny, only two inches tall, it was, nonetheless, exceptionally weighty. Unscrewing the finely machined top, I saw what was inside, for the first time in almost nineteen years.

It's not dust. I always thought it would be just dust. It's really dust and some other, larger things. Heavier things.

After what could have been hours (or just a minute or two... who knows how time behaves in situations like these), I saw a small wave that I knew would crest at my leg. As the water begain to curl onto itself, I swung the vessel downward, smoothly and as gracefully as I could, then back again to empty its precious contents onto the foam that the collapsing wave had created.

The water and foam receded, and I could see the remainder of my errand, shining white in hundreds of pieces on the seafloor, and I wondered briefly if that's where she would lie, forever. And I wondered if I had failed in keeping this, the last of the promises made to her.

But the sea is, in the end, a mother in her own right, and merciful in her own way. As if she knew why I was here, a series of swells crested at my legs, and their receding flow, little by little, carried my mother away.