Pedal of Honor
Near Lagoon Beach, WA - Captain’s favorite local beach
It had been nearly a month since Captain had passed. Getting back out on the trail with Zilla had been harder than I ever could have imagined, but it had been good for me and had helped begin the healing process. Even though I’d had a couple very personal moments of grieving on the trail, I felt the need to do something a little more public as well. I decided to hold a final ceremony to celebrate Captain’s life and to do something for her that I had planned on doing when we finally made it to Washington.
Zilla and I took the wooden box containing her ashes and made our way to Lagoon Beach on Indian Island in Washington, found the perfect spot along the beach, and began the ceremony.
(click below for video)
Talking about Captain’s life had been difficult, but it felt good to recall so many good memories of her instead of dwelling on her absence like I had been for a month. It was bittersweet though, awarding her the Pedal of Honor, as she would never truly get a chance to wear it and it would instead ultimately rest inside her interment box, wrapped around her ashes. There was still one last thing to do make the celebration of Captain’s life complete; I decided that in addition to the posthumous awarding of the Pedal of Honor, I was also granting her a promotion to Admiral Fantastic. She would always be Captain in my heart, but she deserved a rank much higher than I could ever bestow.
