Four winds

is a collocation that I know the meaning of, but I don't know why I know the meaning of it. That is to say, I don't know where I've heard it before and I couldn't properly use it in a sentence. Now, it is seemingly everywhere. My mother, for instance, says to me, "I guess I am sending all my children to the four winds" or something like that. I was getting ready for her to say she was going to Cassadega to commune with the dead.