I’ve been carrying Gerry around for years. Trust me when I say he’s not heavy, not any more, he’s gone from 200 pounds to less than a pound at this point.

My friend and former coworker Gerry Kelly, a jovial, melancholy Irishman, died and was cremated in 1996. He had no known immediate family and although we were not all that close, we shared a love of cooking, the theatre and art.

When it came time for his memorial service, which was a grand community affair, I called Brian, the undertaker, and asked where Gerry was. “He’s here on the shelf. Why?” Brian asked.

“I need a date,” I told him and asked if he could drop off Gerry before the party began so I could take him with me to his own celebration. Half an hour later Gerry and I were on our way to the event. I placed him on top of the large wooden mantel where he could oversee the setting up of food and drink.

People said nice things about Gerry, a bagpiper played Amazing Grace, we told stories and in the end I took Gerry home with me to sit on my mantel for a couple of years.

Eventually he was claimed by another former co-worker who thought he should have a burial at sea. But before that happened, I called Brian again. I told him I’d like to keep some of Gerry. Anything he could do?

“Sure, bring me a jar and I’ll put some of him in it for you,” he said. And so I did. I brought a salsa jar (Gerry loved Mexican food and had spent years in Mexico). Now I possessed a bit of the dearly departed along with his little metal tag that stated who he was, when he was born and when he died.

A short time later I left the Island and moved to Paris; Gerry came with me. One night, a friend and photographer who had known Gerry came for a visit. We had an elegant Thai dinner at The Elephant, and in the wee hours of the morning walked to Victor Hugo’s home on the Place des Vosges. We had taken a bit of Gerry with us to celebrate, and we tossed him against the door of Hugo’s home. I think he liked the idea — the mingling of writers’ spirits.

I traveled to Peru, went to the Sacred Valley and then onto Machu Picchu and while there I left a bit of Gerry in an alcove on a ledge overlooking Wayna Picchu and out over the valley. I’m sure he’s still there watching from his perch as wild llamas and foggy mists come and go along with spirit-seeking tourists.

When I moved to London my salsa jar of Gerry came with me. It sat on the windowsill in my flat late gazing out at foggy gray days. One day while scrounging around the flea market at Islington, I came upon a lovely, heavy-weight, clear condiment jar with a faceted glass stopper. It was perfect to contain Gerry; after all we were living in London and the salsa jar was a little déclassé.

I did leave a bit of him in the salsa jar, not wanting to impose too many changes all at once. When I returned to the States, I tucked both containers in my computer case before driving across country. I studiously avoided leaving him anywhere in the middle of the country; we ended up in San Francisco.

There we had a good view of greenery and birds — including the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill — and I’m sure he felt quite at home living in North Beach, home of the Beat Generation, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (my neighbor), Alan Ginsberg (perhaps Gerry’s neighbor), Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, and the ever-present City Lights Bookstore.

You see, Gerry loved to travel, so I was showing him places I liked, leaving him there to soak up the culture and form his own opinions. We have traveled many miles, many continents, many countries together, and now have come home to roost on the Vineyard where we began our journeys.

What goes around comes around, as the saying goes.

Wendy Brophy is a freelance writer who lives in Vineyard Haven. The late Gerry Kelly was the longtime editor of the Grapevine, an alternative weekly newspaper here, and later was the first editor of The Martha’s Vineyard Times.