“I’m trying to give him a journey,” Hallie Twomey said.
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This post originally appeared at BuzzFeed
On April 14, 2010, C.J. Tromley killed himself after having an argument with his mom. Since then, his mother, Hallie, had left the urn with his ashes on a shelf in her Maine home.
Facebook: scatteringcj
But Hallie wanted more for her son, a former member of the Air Force who was only 20 when he died, so she enlisted volunteers on Facebook to take a little bit of C.J.’s ashes and give him one last adventure.
“I don’t want him to have to sit in an urn for my benefit for whatever rest of time that we have,” Hallie Twomey told The Associated Press. “I wanted to give him something. I’m trying to give him a journey.”
So Hallie made a request on Facebook: She wanted her son to “see the mountains that he never got to climb, see the vast oceans that he would have loved, see tropical beaches and lands far and away.”
After the post was shared by over 100 of her friends, strangers began offering to help too. Hallie started a separate Facebook page just for the project, which she called “Scattering C.J.,” where loved ones and strangers alike can follow the project.
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There are only two rules volunteers have to follow when they scatter C.J.’s ashes around the world. They have to tell him his mom will always love him, and that she’s sorry.
“YOU MUST AGREE TO SAY THAT,” Hallie Twomey wrote on her Facebook page. “Because I am and I need him to hear it as the last thing he hears before he takes off.”
Hallie also asks people to think about C.J., and to think about the people he gave life to through organ donation.
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One man and his daughter scattered the ashes around Lake Erie.
Facebook: scatteringcj
Kevin and his three children put C.J. into the ocean in Plymouth, Mass.
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He went into the cliffs along the Kalapana-Kapoho Road in Hawaii.
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About 150 packets of his ashes have traveled around the world so far, according to the AP, and Hallie said someone soon plans to take him to the top of Mount Everest.
“I want to find peace in this. I want to feel better, but my guilt is so intense so I haven’t yet. I don’t know if it will,” she said. “I hope. I just have hope that maybe this will help in some way, because for 3½ years, nothing has.”
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For more photos, and to see some of the other locations where volunteers have scattered C.J.’s ashes click here.
To Hallie, you’re in my prayers and I pray for your healing. As with the two previous posts, there is no doubt in my mind that there was something else going on in your sons mind. Having known three people in my life who did the same, in all three situations, there was much more then what it appeared to be on the surface. There came a time though that we had to let go. I pray that your doing this for your son will start to bring closure. God bless.
I agree with Bobbi. There must have been other issues. You have to pray and ask God to give you peace. We as parents are not perfect. I think God made it that way, because if we were our children would not need God the Father. You cannot feel responsible for this. We only do the best we can. Think of all the years you and your son shared much love and happiness. Remember all the good. Don’t remember one week moment. Receive God’s love and the love of many people who do love you. This could have happened to… Read more »
Good god! My heart goes out to you. I truly hope this endevour brings you at least some solace, but you must understand one thing. Your son must of had other Demons tearing at his soul in order to do this to himself. I say this as someone who has lost people close to me this way and as someone who has stood there, ‘staring into the abysses’.