WITHOUT A TRACE

I am the end of the line

My father was an only child but produced two sons
My brother died young without having married or produced children and you know my story---no kids, so I am the end of the line.

My father told me that he did not want to be buried when he died---he wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered on our local beach.
My brother asked me to have him cremated and his ashes scattered at the State Athletics track----he was a coach, a national coach who had devoted his life to his sport---he had been appointed to the Olympic coaching panel about a month before his cancer was diagnosed and died before he could live his dream.
My mother decided that she wanted her ashes spread on our beach with the ashes of my old Labrador but with a smirk on her face, asked that I move them down the beach a little from where my fathers were spread.

As part of my inheritance, I gained control of my father's family burial plot at the local cemetery and thus the fate of the remains of my paternal great grandfather and all of those who followed---a total of nine.

So of course, the year after I take control, the 99 year lease on the plot expires and I am asked to renew the lease or the plot will be resumed by the cemetery trust.

Resumed, what does that mean---well they will take it back and any remains buried there will be buried deeper and the plot used by someone else.
OK, that's easy, I'll lease the plot again for another 99 year---but no----leases are now for a maximum of 25 years.
So I have this responsibility to my family and I haven't visited the grave for 10 years, so I go to see what I should do.
The headstones that were there were faded and unless you knew the history, they were unreadable-----those of a great uncle and three children were missing.

Well, my parents aren't there and my brother has his place and I can only get a 25 year lease and then what----so I decided to exhume all of the remains, have them cremated and spread them on the beach----great plan Clyde til I am told that it will cost $1500 per person to dig them up---that's nine times $1500---then each must be removed by a funeral director individually and they must be cremated individually ---got a bulk deal there---$5,000 for the lot----and I have to get a health inspector there for the day and pay his wages, get Court Orders supported by the Attorney General---do it yourself, around $2,000---
So it's going to cost me $20,000 plus and I only met two of these people and don't even remember them------that plan was dismissed, as was a new 25 year lease because there was no one to continue with it after me.

My friends / executors know that there should be a gathering at the local pub for all of those who would like a last drink and that my ashes should be on the beach with the rest of the clan---that's fine and I am content with that.
But with no monument stones at the cemetery and the rest of us being on the beach, who will ever know that we have been here---a whole family gone without a trace.
A man from Denmark took a chance on life and came to Australia alone and started his own new world legacy and no one will remember.---I can't let that happen

So that $20,000 that I can't spend now can come out of my estate and I have done a deal with the local council that they will erect two beach front seats, overlooking my beach, with all of my family's names on little brass plaques on the back of the top rail.
Maybe no one will read them but maybe someone will and remember that we were here