Family Hunger Genealogy

© Copyright Todd Neel

The high tide is coming in, and little Cape Creek at the edge of the Pacific Ocean is clashing with ocean currents. I see an unidentified white substance at the bottom of the creek, wondering if it is someone’s cremains. I am inspired to scatter some more of my brother’s, David’s, ashes right here. It is an experiment where the lighter current of the creek would float the lighter ashes downstream to the powerful ocean. I open a glass jar and shake it into the water. The lighter ashes sort out like a milky cloud, drifting towards the Pacific. Heavier bone chips settle on the bottom. Ripples of light and dark colors are created on the bottom of the creek. The incoming tide stirred up the heavier bone fragments on the bottom. Possible geologic evidence might be found later in sandstone millions of years from now.  

This caused me to wonder how long this evidence of his life would be recognizable. And then, as I performed this ceremony, this ancient ritual of life, the incoming tide of the Pacific chased me away, uncaring, unless I wanted to remain and get wet over the tops of my boots.

I’m in Oregon, at Devil’s Elbow State Park, at the entrance to the Haceta Head Lighthouse. It’s October 2025.

There is a beautiful beach under a historical arched bridge for Highway 101 that Cape Creek flows under.

Evidence of events: I have been reading Carl Sagan’s book Cosmos, where he wrote about mankind developing technology to where we could better view craters on the moon. As telescopes were invented and improved, different craters could be seen on the lunar surface, and smart people (scientists) saw what they determined were older craters and then newer craters. The newer ones were seen as having starburst patterns from debris scattered about in a radius of rays from rocks thrown out. Because there is no atmosphere and therefore no weather to erode the lunar surface, the smaller patterns of starburst streaks were only eroded by micro-meteorites, the size of sand and dust, leaving the craters alone after millions and maybe billions of years just slightly degraded.

Alternately, on earth, we have an atmosphere, weather, and erosion which works on evidence of events here. These events might be from comets and meteor impacts (which are rarer here than on the moon because of our atmosphere), or from other markers of time, such as earthly geologic events, dinosaur lives, or man-made incidents.

Here, where Cape Creek was colliding with the Pacific Ocean, gravity from the moon is creating a high tide coming in. As I scatter his ashes, I am witnessing the erosion of the evidence of a life of a human being slowly degraded, dissolving, the life of my brother. It does not erase the scars on the emotions and memories of his victims and their families, though. Remember, he was a criminal.

What kind of erosion erases the good, and the bad, that people create, even those of a three-time felony sexual offender?

What kind of erosion erases evidence of my ancestors, my great-great-greats that were essential for me to be here, and my first cousins three times removed that weren’t so essential for me to be here so I could notice these things? (Note, this headstone marker has fallen into the grass and will eventually sink below the earth soon. It is for my first cousin, three times removed, named Permenice Neel. His marker is in Ohio, near the former town of Neel.) Or, even, evidence of this adopted brother (John David Neel). What about their headstones which are fading away as I chase them before they disappear …