Our final resting places speak volumes about us. My dad chose a hike

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23-07-2025

I'm not quite sure when my father first said he wanted us to spread his ashes from the summit of Capitol Peak. But it probably happened soon after my mother survived breast cancer ― and promptly left him.
This might sound cruel, but from my vantage point, my parents' marriage had never brought either of them much happiness. And in the years after their divorce, following some predictable speed bumps that came with the dissolution of a union of almost 40 years, both Mom and Dad seemed more alive than I'd ever known them.
It was during this time that my brother, my sister and I climbed Capitol Peak with my father, Michael Cohen. Dad was 70 at the time, and he wanted us to see firsthand the site of his proudest accomplishment: the first ascent of the north face of a 14,000-foot mountain outside of Aspen.
The climb proved grueling and perilous. At our campsite on the evening we returned from the top, Dad looked out at the mountain, its massive profile silhouetted against the moonlit sky. 'You guys don't have to scatter my ashes from the summit,' he said. He pointed to the base of the peak, which rose from Capitol Lake. 'You can just do it from down there.'
That was 25 years ago. Dad lived another 24, passing away last summer. After Jonathan, Alison and I sold his house and settled his estate, there remained one chapter to write.
Earlier this month, the three of us, along with my wife, made the 14-mile hike to honor Dad's final wish. Like the man himself, the experience was not without its challenges: 2,000-plus feet of elevation gain, at an altitude that started at almost two miles and rose from there, and in bodies now a quarter century older and more worn out than the last time we'd hiked these trails.
Still, it brought Dad back in ways we wouldn't have imagined. As Ali bore my father's ashes ― 'In the standard funeral, the adult children carry the parent's coffin,' she said. 'This hike was Dad's equivalent in the bottom of a backpack' ― we traded memories of the person he was.
Perhaps it was because we'd waited a bit since his death. And also because we were in the realm where he was most alive ― vital, strong, happy ― our stories and recollections veered away from his last years, when he receded into himself. Instead, we hiked across alpine meadows and up fields of talus alongside thoughts and stories about 'peak' Dad, the one who wanted so badly for us to share in his love for the mountains, for the wild, remote, almost otherworldly places that only an intrepid few ever taste.
When we reached Capitol Lake, we ate our lunches beneath the lip of a boulder, the only shade available. Then we stood in a half-moon, looking out at the route Dad had first scaled six decades earlier, and said our goodbyes.
I do not believe a person's remains are any more a part of who they were than a favorite T-shirt or a lucky pair of socks. Less so, really. Still, the resting places we choose for the remnants of our bodies speak volumes about us.
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Dad had picked a site where in life he'd found joy, where he'd triumphed. Was there also a bit of self-celebration? Sure. But, I realized, there was more.
With this, his last expedition, my father had brought our family together. In a deep, meaningful way. He'd given us a lovely, meditative day in a place whose beauty was almost overwhelming. It would be something we'll always treasure.
Even in death, Dad had enriched our lives.
When a light wind kicked up, my brother, my sister and I poured what was left of my father out over a rocky outcropping that overlooked Capitol Lake. From there, I imagined, he could have gazed out over the ice-blue water to the sheer face he'd scaled so many years ago.
I thought of Pop, sitting there, taking stock of all he'd done. Wearing the floppy, white hat he donned when he hiked. Munching on a peach. Smiling.
Adam Cohen is the senior vice president and general counsel of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: My dad died. Here's how our family honored him and our grief | Opinion
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