Beautiful. I love this.
I haven't been able to part with all of my son's ashes, but a great deal of them went into a body of water the he loved, and that I can visit. For me, birds bring him close to me, much like your brother in law and the dolphin.
I'm happy for you all to have had this day together.
Ohy love, I understand why people hold onto the ashes. It's definitely a hard thing to do as it's another aspect of them leaving even if the logic says otherwise. Mum wanted to honour his wishes and they had explicitly talked about it so it was easier for her in some ways. Of course, hard, but also beautiful. We had ALL been saying 'he needs to be in the water' and joking that he would be mad we hadn't already.
I love how you see him in the birds. It's small things that connect them to life that keeps us going xx