Last Journey

The article is about an American woman, Vera Anderson, who spent all her life in Medford, Oregon. When she was getting on in years, she suffered a stroke which confined her to her room. This was a torment for it has always been her dream to travel the world. Before she make her final journey - the one from which we never return - she made a decision. She would travel the world after her death.

Ross, her son, went to the local notary public and retgistered his mother's will. When she died, she would like to be cremated. Nothing unusual about that. But the will went on to stipulate that hwe ashes were to be placed in 241 small barfs, which were to be sent to the heads of postal offices in the 50 American states , and to each of the 191 countires of the world, so that at least part of her body would end up visiting the places she had always dreamed about.

As soon as Vera died, Ross carried out her last wishes with all the respect anyone could hope in a son. With each remittance, he asked that his mother be given a decent funeral.

Everyone who received her ashes treated Ross's request with utter seriousness. In the four corners of the earth, a silent chain of solidarity was formed, in which sympathetic strangers organised the most diverse of ceremonies, depending on the place that the late Anderson would have liked to visit.

Thus, Vera's ashes were scattered in Lake Titicaca, in Bolivia, accordingly to the ancient traditions of the Aymara Indians; they were scattered on the river in front of the Royal Castle in Stockholm, Sweden, on the banks of the Chao Phraya in Thailand, in a Shinto temple in Japan, on the glaciers of Antarctica, in the Sahara desert. the sisters of charity in an orphanage in South America prayed for a week before scattering the ashes int he garden and then decided that Vera Anderson be considered a kind of guardian angel of the place.

Ross Anderson received phtos from the five continents, from all races and all cultures, showing men and women honouring his mother's last wishes.

When we see today's divided world, a world in which no one seems to care about anyone else, Vera Anderson's last journey fills us with hope that there is still respect, love and generosity in the souls of our fellow human beings, however far away they may be.