Krista Szymborski walked past a rusty chain-link fence and into a clearing under the I Street Bridge, cradling a black oblong box to her chest.

"This is the place," she said. "This is where my dad slept."

Szymborski, 40, had traveled all the way from rural Wisconsin to bring the remains of her father, Richard Nary, back to where he once lived as a homeless man. In the searing heat of the afternoon, she stood Wednesday under the bridge, with traffic roaring above her, and started to cry.

"My dad and I just didn't have enough time," she said. "He's leaving me again."

Nary's last home was with Szymborski and her husband, Craig, in a small town called Wild Rose, north of Madison. He died there in April at age 69, just 16 months after his unlikely reunion with his daughter.

Before that, he lived for years as a homeless alcoholic. He had abandoned his wife and five children in upstate New York and never looked back, drowning in booze and guilt until a kind stranger found him living in a cardboard box on an urban street in Sacramento two years ago and took him in.

That stranger, Todd Reiners, tracked down Szymborski, who was a child when her father left the family about 35 years earlier. Szymborski flew to Sacramento to meet her estranged dad, and then took him home to Wisconsin.

The adjustment was difficult at times, with Szymborski laying down rules and Nary rebelling against them. But in the end, all of his children and even his former wife, Sandra, found peace with the past. Nary died in his own bedroom, surrounded by photographs of loved ones, with his family around him.

He had talked often about returning to Sacramento, his adopted city, for a visit. He told stories about working with horses at Cal Expo, brushes with death on the streets and friends who helped him when he was down and out. But then cancer started to consume him, and he never made the trip.

After his death, Szymborski decided to make the capital city his final resting place. Or one of them, anyway. She will keep some of his ashes in Wisconsin, she said, and scatter some in New York.

Although she knew that the practice is a misdemeanor in California without permission from the property owner, Szymborski decided to take her chances. She held the black box in her lap most of the way on her flight from Wisconsin, during a layover in Las Vegas and into California.

Once in Sacramento, she and Craig first headed to the corner of Howe Avenue and Hurley Way, where during the last few months of his homelessness Richard Nary slept in a cardboard box behind a gas station. It was there that Reiners discovered Nary and befriended him.

"This is where it all began," Szymborski said as she tossed a handful of her father's ashes over a fence and onto the spot where his makeshift home once stood.

Reiners hugged Szymborski and accepted a small white box tied with a blue ribbon containing some of her father's remains.

Standing by was Szymborski's cousin Nigel Nary, who lives nearby and never noticed the frail homeless man who frequented the station where he fueled his car at least once a week.

"I'll bet I passed him a thousand times," Nigel Nary said, peering at the nook behind two large green trash bins where Richard Nary spent many cold nights. "I knew he had been missing for a long, long time. I never imagined he was right here."

As the group talked, a man across the street waved a sign in front of cars whizzing past the busy intersection. "Homeless and Hungry. Can You Help?" it said.

Next, Szymborski wanted to go to a place under a bridge that her father had shown her when she reunited with him in January 2010. She could see it clearly in her head, she said. It was across from a train museum and close to railroad tracks. She remembered a sign that said Old Sacramento.

Reiners led her to several locations popular with homeless people, but none looked familiar to Szymborski. Then he led her to the barren spot under the I Street bridge.

"Yes," she said. She pointed out where her father said he had once spread his sleeping bag.

Szymborski took a few tentative steps forward. She peeled back the plastic covering on the black box, and reached her hand inside.

She threw handful after handful of stuff that looked like fine white sand into the air. The remains of Richard Nary rained down on the ground and created a thin cloud that disappeared into the sky.

As the cloud vanished, Szymborski looked up and quietly wept.

"Be free. Continue on your journey," she said quietly. "I love you."

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