The Aer Lingus ticket counter employee hoisted my large suitcase onto the scale, her green uniform straining at the seams.

“What do you have, a dead body in there? ” she remarked tying tie a large tag marked “HEAVY” around the handle.

Actually I did.

Inside a small Ziploc bag wrapped inside a white cotton shirt, a pale purple scarf and an FDNY t-shirt was my husband Dave, or I should say, a small amount of his ashes. I was returning to Ireland to throw them into the Irish Sea at the bottom of the cliffs of Ballycotton where we had spent the best day of our lives.

Dave and I had traveled to Ireland four years prior with our son and Dave’s family to attend the wedding of a cousin. The cousin who was from Tipperary was marrying a girl from Cork. The two counties had such historic rivalry in the sport of Hurling that on the day of the wedding the bride wore a red sash for her teams color while the groom wore a blue and yellow tie.

The wedding lasted most of the week and our son Aidan, who had never seen so much revelry in his short four years danced in his sear sucker suit with anyone who asked.

The day before we were to return home, Dave’s mom offered to take Aidan so Dave and I could have a rare day alone. Dave’s head hit the ceiling of the car as we drove out of the seaside town of Garryvoe past Ostrich farms that made Dave mumble, “What happened to the sheep?” The road ended in an overgrown parking lot at the top of a high cliff.

Memory saturates itself with color, so the brown in the cliffs that day made them look like the earth turned inside out and topped with the deepest green grass that blew sideways in the wind.

There was no one around.

We climbed down cracked cement platforms that were so steep they made our knees crack until we landed on the beach where the rocks made a deafening rumble as they rolled under the waves. There was a cave eroded into the side of the cliff and Dave and I hid in there and made love and while my skin was still tingling from it, I jumped into the Irish Sea, the water so cold, I had to paddle my legs and arms frantically. Dave watched me from the shore laughing. I closed my eyes to sear the memory into my mind.

After 9-11, The Irish Consulate had generously donated trips to fire families and so at 4 am Dublin time I climbed into the opposite side of a van with my sister, my eight year old son, my friend Jason affectionately known as my gay husband and my friend Merri, affectionately named my lesbian husband.

Scraping the ancient stone walls with our oversized white van, I drove us for over a week past the serene Galway bay, through County Claire to the majestic Cliffs of Moher.

“Sheep, “Castle” “Jesus Sky” “Church” we yelled as we passed countless cloudy skies where the sun would send shards of light onto the rocky ruins of castles and churches. I drove west to Kenmare finally landing on Dave’s birthday in Kinsale, a small fishing village about twenty-five miles from Ballycotton.   Merri, whose pub guide had become our bible, chose a large, dark pub on the main street called the Whitehouse with doors painted in a thick and bold blue.   The pub was mostly empty and we took up a round table in the middle ordering salmon sandwiches.   I ordered a Guinness in Dave’s honor remembering how he loved sipping the dark, warm beer with a head as thick as whip cream that made a moustache on his upper lip. We used to joke that we were going to the pub to eat a Guinness.

Aidan returned from the bathroom and leaned his head against me.   He had been growing so fast these last few months; I was surprised to feel his almost up to my shoulder. I stroked his soft, straight hair and he looked up at me. The sun had left a spray of freckles across his nose and his eyes were wide.

“I saw Daddy in the hall,” he said. The adults exchanged nervous glances.

“It’s Dad’s birthday so we all feel his presence today,” I said.

“No. I saw him!” He insisted taking my hand and leading me through the dark pub through swinging doors leading to a long hallway painted a pale yellow.

I stopped short.

The wall was covered with photographs of firefighters, t-shirts, flags, wake cards and firehouse patches. Dave had loved to collect patches and the firefighters traded them like baseball cards.

“See?” Aidan said pointing to Dave’s face on the left.   It was his favorite photo of himself, the one I used on his wake card. It was from a rope rescue drill in Long Island City. He is suspended on a rope, high up on the towers of a power plant. He wears a red helmet and his dimples are stretched into a smile. I grabbed Aidan’s clammy hand and marched toward the bar where a tall thin man leaned against a cash register reading the Irish Times.

“Excuse me? ” I asked and he looked up his small blue eyes squinting at me.   “Do you know how those photos of the firefighters got there?”

“They’re from Ringfinnan.” He said in a brogue walking toward our end of the bar. He had thick hair that rolled across his head in white waves.  I stared at him confused.  “The hill where the nurse lives.” Noticing my expression, he leaned in. “Did you not know about Kathleen?”

I shook my head no.

“Kathleen Murphy. She’s a nurse who worked in New York. Her family is from Kinsale. She was working at a hospital on 911 . I forget which one but she was waiting for the firefighters to come in…

I picture a short, stout woman in white orthopedic shoes.

“…but they never did, so she came home and with the help of the town, planted a tree for every firefighter who died.”

I squeeze Aidan’s hand and he leans on my hip.

“Once in a while we get a firefighter in or a family and we hang a photograph or whatever they give me on that wall.”

“Where is this hill?” I asked.

“It’s about a ten minute drive up the road.”

Dave and I had a joke from our first trip to Ireland together. “How does an Irishman give direction?”   “He doesn’t. He just takes you there himself”

And so, Mike insisted he take us there, closing the pub with a flip of a sign.

“This is so nice of you!” I said.

“Go way outta that.” He replied. I loved Irish expressions, how when Aidan was born Dave’s relatives called him “Absolutely stealable.”

We piled into the van and followed him up a winding road where a low ranch house sat overlooking the Kinsale Valley and Bay. At first glance, the yellowing fields looked more like Tuscany, but the bay dotted with white boats and low cliffs was t pure Ireland.

A Golden Retriever trotted over and sniffed Aidan’s shoes.

“I’ll ring the bell then,” Mike said stepping up to the stoop. I glanced the trees in endless, neat rows.

“It’ll be hard to find your husband’s tree since they’re just saplings and there’s so many, you know. “ Mike said stepping off the stoop and leading us to the hillside next to the house.

“I found daddy!” Aidan yelled. Mike and I stopped, noticing Aidan in front of a small tree in the second row. Kathleen had labeled them all with black plastic tags engraved with the names of the firefighters.

“Unbelievable,” Mike said shaking his head. I took Dave’s wake card out of my wallet and leaned it against his tree. We all held back tears watching Aidan press Dave’s wake card into the dirt.

We walked through the rows, carefully reading the names until Mike said goodbye and we piled back into the van to drive to Ballycotton to do what we came here to do.

The sky was overcast, with thick metal clouds making the road much more gloomy than I remembered. We drove in silence until I recognized the small parking lot leading to the path. We formed a line and walked the short trail in silence. I descended the cement platforms to the rocky beach. I closed my eyes remembering Dave’s breath in my ear, the sound of the rocks on the ocean floor quieter than before. “This is freaking gorgeous!” Merri said picking up one of the gray stones piled below us. Aidan was already at the waters edge throwing smaller stones into the sea. I stepped up next to him picking up a flat rock. I tried to skip it but I couldn’t. I always envied the way my sister and my father skimmed stones making six perfect rings that spread out like an echo, while mine always made a dismal plunk.

“You have to find the thin flat ones.” My sister instructed Aidan and as they searched for the perfect rock, I reached into my purse, finding the zip lock bag with Dave’s ashes. There wasn’t much left since I scattered some at Jones beach, some in Prospect park and a few at Greenwood Cemetery.     I remember the funeral director shaking his head when I told him all the places I wanted to scatter Dave. He delicately tried to tell me there was hardly any of him found, but I was relieved to have something. I was one of the lucky ones. I fingered the grainy ash in my hands and took a small handful, throwing it into the Irish Sea. The tears blurred my vision as I remembered how Dave looked on the shore that day while I floated in the water that was so cold it made me hold my breath for one, perfect minute.