‘Clementine left no instructions for the disposal of her ashes. She was, after all, a dog.

What to do with a stash of ashes from a family pet?

There’s a dusty box in the closet at the front door. It’s in a plastic bag on the top shelf.

The box contains the ashes of Clementine, my Labrador. It’s been there for, oh, years now. The case could be made that Clemmie was my favourite child. She never lipped off. Never missed curfew. She thought I was the sun and the moon. And she certainly always finished her dinner. Yours, too, if you weren’t looking. She was sweetness itself, my Clementine. I miss her. I ought to deal with those ashes. The idea was to scatter them in Pacific Spirit Park, a place we couldn’t even drive by without Clementine getting excited.

There was never any question about where to scatter them.

The question was: when? We waited on weather. We waited on anniversaries. We waited on both my kids being available. We forgot.

We didn’t forget Clementine; we simply forgot about her ashes. Her ashes. Ashes.

I have a hard time connecting that surprisingly heavy, inanimate cube with my wagging companion of eight years.

Their presence is both a reproach and a pleasant memory each time I take a coat out of the closet. It’s time I did something with them.

It’s a weird thing, having a box of soot that was once someone you loved. I mention it to a friend and he sends me a photo of his mother’s ashes. They sit in a cylinder in his office providing a perch for a hat.

Ash is sort of a misnomer. The residual material after a body is cremated is mostly mechanically pulverized bone. Everything else vaporizes. The common term for cremated remains is cremains, which to my ear, sounds like a super couple mash- up; Billary or Brangelina. I’m told cremains have the colour of lint and the texture of coarse sand.

In the Christian world, the idea of cremation derives not from the Bible, but from the Book of Common Prayer: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Widespread adoption of the practice is relatively recent in the Western world. Interestingly, it was leading lights from the world of arts and letters who created the Cremation Society of Great Britain in response to perceived threat to public health posed by burial. The first official crema- tion in the U. K. wasn’t until 1885 and let’s just say it didn’t take off like wildfire; of the 597,357 people who died in the U.K. in 1885, only three were cremated. Today, about 75 per cent of all people who die in the U. K. are cremated. Japan has the highest cremation rate of almost 100 per cent of deaths. Italy has the lowest, sitting at about 15 per cent, despite Pope Paul VI removing the restriction against cremation in 1963. Of the 2.5 million people who die in the U. S. every year, approximately 42 per cent are cremated.

Canadian figures for 2010 indicate about 60 per cent of us are choosing cremation. Actually, I’ve made another choice, but apparently it isn’t an option.

There are a lot of things I didn’t want to become acquainted with — hair dye, reading glasses, classic rock radio stations — but time delivers an array of unwanted expertise. Fam- iliarity with cremains are high on that list. I suspect that I’m avoiding opening Clemmie’s box.

Clementine left no instructions. She was, after all, a dog. But the written preference of the disposition of ashes is often, surprisingly, a legally binding contract. On the provision that the request is reasonable and won’t cause hardship, the deceased is legally entitled to have his ashes spread wherever specified. There are a couple of caveats, but they’re quite mild.

Consumer Protection B.C.’s website recounts cremain scatterings at the Pacific National Exhibition racetrack, home plate at Nat Bailey Stadium and off the back of a cruise ship. One woman wanted to have her dog’s cremains interred with her. In B.C., this wasn’t allowed; human cemeteries don’t allow the interment of animal remains.

If you’re scattering ashes on public property, you’re supposed to ask for permission from whatever authority governs that land. The volume of ash isn’t tremendously consequential; the cremains of the average adult body weigh about five pounds. Unless the request is for something idiosyncratic, most people just dispatch with them quickly and quietly, and without obtaining permission. The ocean is perennially popular, as are parks.

This is not to say that there aren’t considerations.

There’s a particularly beautiful park in the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Columbia. Sweeping golden meadows blunt out suddenly to cliffs. At the foot of the sheer drop, waves ceaselessly thrash giant boulders. A constant breeze sweeps up the 90-degree drop. Lots of people describe this location as their favourite spot on Earth, and hence, it’s a favourite spot for ash scattering. Many’s the evening when we would watch a solemn procession marshal themselves near the edge of those golden cliffs. After a few moments, an arm would extend and a small spray of material would billow out in front of the assembled.

I mentioned the constant breeze, didn’t I? The nice thing is, often, we would hear laughter. And sneezing. So, before spring turns to summer, I’ll take Clemmie for one last walk in the woods. And I’ll be sure to check the direction of the wind first.