When Robin reached out, she was responding to my call for conversations.

She told me she couldn’t travel to the Berkshires when her sister and family scattered their mother’s ashes in the same place where their father’s had been scattered decades earlier. Her sister saved some ashes for her. Robyn keeps them in her mother’s old peach colored jewelry pouch and carries them with her to political marches.

We met in Robin’s home, tucked at the end of a leafy cul-de-sac, filled with light, open space, and vibrant art. Sitting together, she spoke about her mother, their loving and strong-willed relationship, and the ways she continues to be in relationship with her mother’s ashes not as something fixed or finished, but as a presence that still moves through her life.

This is Robin’s story.

The sculpture pictured was created by her father and is part of the story she shares in the interview.