We sent Mum's ashes up in a firework

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/07/we-sent-mums-ashes-up-in-a-firework

Version 0 of 1.

"I think I've just heard your mum on the radio: Judi from Barnes … that's right, isn't it? Well, she said that when she dies she wants her ashes scattered from a firework!"

A conversation I didn't expect to have at the school gates. It seemed my mother had been discussing bizarre funeral arrangements on Vanessa Feltz's radio show. Still, I tried not to sound too shocked:

"Yep, that sounds like her. Up until now our instructions have been that when she's old and in a wheelchair we're to push her off a cliff – no, really – but clearly she's had a rethink."

On questioning, it turned out that Mum had indeed moved on – onwards and upwards, in fact.

"So, let me just get this straight: wheelchair off a cliff is no longer an option?"

"Yes," she giggled, "but that doesn't mean I want to end up buried, or stuck in some cemetery. I want to get fired off Richmond Hill at my wake and explode over Petersham Meadows. And that's that."

I could understand the significance of scattering Mum's ashes there – for most of her adult life she had lived in and around Richmond in London – but a firework? Further questioning revealed that the idea of an explosive wake had come via Bristol (where else?), courtesy of my hippy, dippy sister, Chloe (bless her, but, really, who else?).

Chloe had left London for Bristol University in 1990 and, entranced by the city's West Country vibe, had never returned to the capital. When she did finally move, it was to Perth, Western Australia, but before moving she'd had to attend the untimely funeral of her dear girlfriend, Lez. Some time later a memorial service was held, and that's when the whole firework/ashes combo entered our family's conscious.

Apparently, as dusk fell, the mourners raised a glass to Lez as, far above them, special fireworks (I never found out exactly how many, but apparently more than one) were set off, scattering her ashes far and wide. It left a massive impression on my sister, understandably, which was how my mother had, in turn, hit on the idea.

I shouldn't have been unduly surprised. "Isn't fun the best thing to have?" was Mum's simple, if rhetorical, recipe for life, and if that meant veering a little off centre and not doing what was expected of her, so much the better. From riding a white rhino as a kid growing up in Kenya, to sparking a terrorist alert while teaching my siblings and me to fly kites in Richmond Park (it turns out that if you tie several kite lines together they show up on Heathrow's radar and the police come and get you), Mum just did things, well, differently. Funereal fireworks? Frankly, now that she knew they existed, it would have been rude not to.

Still, amusing though it was, our conversation set my nerves jangling. Mum had been in increasingly poor health for several years and – giggle though she might – for her to touch on these things meant mortality was on her mind. And no wonder, because just days into 2006, a lifetime as a smoker had finally caught up with her and she succumbed to a vicious chest infection that almost killed her.

For several months she was on life-support in intensive care. Then, incredibly, with tortoise-like slowness, Mum turned the corner. She always was a stubborn bugger ("It's not been easy," my stepfather, Keith, who adored her, would regularly jest in happier times) and beneath her battered exterior was an iron will that had survived unscathed.

By the time Mum came home, spring was spent, but it wasn't just the seasons that had changed. Whereas previously I'd find her doing something seriously un-senior-citizenish, such as sitting astride the garden shed hacking back ivy, now a visit to TK Maxx could leave her exhausted. Not that she'd ever admit it. Instead, she flitted between London and her beloved Mallorca, where our family has a home, while pretending all was well. It drove me nuts, her constant gallivanting, but wrapping her up in cotton wool was never an option.

"I refuse to live a boring life," she told me one afternoon when I'd been nagging her about slowing down; drinking less and not using budget airlines like buses. "I already can't do so many things I'd like to, so forget giving up wine or anything else. I'd rather a few more years of fun, than a dull existence for decades. It's my life, my choice."

Mum managed almost seven more years, most of which were indeed fun. Quite how was both mystery and miracle. She survived a second crisis in Mallorca, in 2010. "Don't panic, but I've had a small heart attack," she announced nonchalantly, for all the world sounding as if she were calling to say she had run out of milk. But 24 hours later she was on life-support and my brother, aunt and I were on our way to Palma. A day or so later, Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, sending air travel into meltdown. Not that it mattered to us – we were going nowhere but Mum's bedside.

By rights, it should have all ended then, but as the volcano stabilised, so did Mum – just enough to be brought back to London by air ambulance. When, weeks later, Mum woke to find herself back in hospital, her inability to speak was irrelevant. My family has a default phrase for dire times, and her look of despair spoke volumes: "Shit, fuck and bugger?" I asked. Rolling her eyes skyward, she nodded faintly.

This time, summer was in full swing when Mum arrived home. Mentally, she was as sharp as ever, but now anything physical was an effort and she required increasingly regular oxygen. We spent a lot of time together but, bar the occasional jokey aside, we never discussed her explosive demands again in any detail. I suspect because she knew she didn't have heaps longer to live – and because I was in complete denial of the fact.

She was back in Mallorca when she hit her hat trick last year. First came the innocuous phone call: "I know you're busy, but I wanted to tell you I'm in hospital."

"Shit."

"No, don't panic; I've got a chest infection and my breathing's rubbish, but I'm on steroids and feeling much better already."

"Shall I come out?"

"No, there's no need."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

It was the last time we spoke. By the following morning she was on life-support and I was booking flights.

Tenacious as ever, Mum clung on for 10 more days. That final morning, a murmuration of starlings soared above us as we drove to the hospital; flanking our journey like hyperactive, heavenly outriders. An astonishing, joyful sight that I'll be lucky to see the like of again; while I'm not remotely religious, I like to think they were showing Mum's soul the way, for by that afternoon she was gone.

The following days passed in a surreal, organisational fog. Getting Mum home was a nightmare that took several weeks, not helped by a baggage strike that saw her stranded halfway, in Madrid. I could only hope she hadn't been left out on the tarmac. Getting family back from Australia, Canada and mainland Spain proved equally time-consuming.

It says much about my mother that not one member of her immediate family – jetlagged or not – thought to question her unusual pyrotechnical demands, let alone mention that the whole idea was news to them. Instead, there was a collective acceptance and innate understanding that it was both utterly possible and utterly plausible that Mum would have wanted something so essentially un-British as frivolity and freedom of expression in death, and therefore it was neither questioned as a concept or action. Even my stepfather, Keith – a firm believer in tradition and doing things "properly" and very much the yin to Mum's yang – didn't raise an eyebrow, regardless of how little he approved. Indeed, so acquiescent were my family that, weirder still, it was only while writing this piece that I discovered that not one of my three siblings – not even Chloe, the catalyst for the whole caboodle – had had an inkling that fireworks were on the cards.

"I don't remember her ever talking about it, so it was a shock to find out that was what she wanted and that I'd given her the idea yet knew nothing about it," she said. "I remember thinking bloody hell, Mum really is going up in a firework."

But as my brother, Cass, put it: "I can't remember her ever mentioning it to me, either, but then she was so whacky it wasn't a surprise."

Traditionally, months pass between someone's funeral and the memorial service – allowing time to reflect and create a suitable celebration of a life well lived – but thanks to our far-flung family and Mum's baggage-handling woes, we had just 48 hours between the two. And therein lay a problem. In 2005, the writer Hunter S Thompson had his ashes scattered via fireworks shot out of a 150ft-high cannon. We weren't after anything quite so grand, just a rocket or two; still, all the companies we contacted – and there are a handful or so in the UK that specialise in "final fireworks" – required several weeks to do the job by which time Mum's last audience would have long dispersed. (And if a firework explodes in the sky, and no one is around to see it …)

Just when it looked as if Mum's desire to go up in smoke was going to go, er, up in smoke, Chloe found Skyburst, an incredible company near Bristol that was prepared to do the job on the spot. So, the morning after Mum's cremation, Chloe drove Mum's ashes gingerly down the M4 and left her with the Skyburst crew (who needed just an eggcup or two's worth and wanted to know Mum's name, as they like to connect with those they're dealing with). A few hours later the job was done: two fireworks in case one failed to explode, although knowing Mum, that was never going to be an issue.

For anyone reading this who doesn't know south-west London, the view from Richmond Hill, looking out over Petersham Meadows and the river Thames, is truly one of London's finest. The only view in England to be protected by an act of Parliament – the Richmond, Ham and Petersham Open Spaces Act of 1902 – it has been celebrated in paintings by Reynolds and Turner, and was described by Sir Walter Scott as "an unrivalled landscape". It's not the sort of place where people legally let off fireworks – let alone fireworks containing their mother.

In the end, the fireworks were let off at Mum's wake, as dusk fell, fired from a nearby Petersham golf course. We watched from the terrace of Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park as they exploded over the park's playground where we had spent such happy times with Mum when we were kids.

The first one came down low and nearly took out a runner – which was awkward – but the second soared high up into the sky before exploding with an almighty boom, grabbing everyone's attention. A flash of intense, immense beauty, it was Mum all over. Afterwards, several friends remarked what a great idea it had been to have fireworks at a wake. When we explained that Mum actually was the fireworks they were, well, blown away.

As we left, my son Joe said wisely:

"I was dreading today, but it was a good party. Granny would have enjoyed it. The only thing wrong with it was that she wasn't here."

"Ah, but she was, my darling," I said. "She made absolutely sure of that."

As for the rest of her ashes? They are in the cemetery, next to her mother and grandmother. I just hope that she isn't too cross that, despite all her best efforts, part of her ended up taking the traditional route, eventually.