Twilight

 It's a beautiful evening here as I sit on the back porch writing.  Twilight is setting in.  The clouds are a mix of pink and and purple and a weird blue-gray.  The moon is out -- a waxing gibbous, I think it's called.  Looks like it'll be full in a few days.  It's a painting.  God doing his best Bob Ross.  Or maybe God let Bob paint this one...

I don't know what it is about Father's Day that makes me think about my dad.  Just one of life's little mysteries, I suppose.

Saturday, the plan was to meet Dad and his wife and go to supper and to the cemetery where his parents are buried.  (I've written about the cemetery here.)   Dad wanted to meet at 3:30.  It's about a 45-minute-to-an-hour drive to the cemetery.  So I'm thinking we'll get there at 4:30, leave the cemetery around 5ish, and be at the restaurant by 5:15 or so.  I know they like to eat super early, so that seemed like a good compromise.

I cannot adequately describe the moment of surprise and just wanting to burst out laughing out loud as Dad blew past the exit to the cemetery and I realized, "Oh, my dear Heavenly Father, we are about to eat supper at 4:15 in the afternoon."

But that's exactly what happened.

As we were ordering our drinks, my step-mom got water and whispered, "I didn't figure I oughta have any caffeine this late in the day."  Meanwhile, I was looking much forward to my sweet tea and thinking, "I'll be doing great if this is the last caffeine I have today!"

After force-feeding myself a rather delicious meal of a cheeseburger, chili dog, (What?  They're really small!  Everybody gets multiples!) and banana pudding for dessert, we left for the cemetery.

Dad took a different way -- an old way -- and showed us the house where he grew up.  As we continued on the drive, I asked where his high school was, and he started peering off the road to the right.  He said, "You can probably see it behind these new buildings."  The buildings turned out to be the new school. He didn't realize they had built one.  And though I'm sure it didn't bother him, I felt bad for him in that instant.

Later, he took us clear across town to the cemetery where his two half-brothers are buried.  They weren't buried near each other and they obviously weren't buried by their parents.  I wondered why.  Dad didn't seem to know.

At some point as we walked amongst the peaceful rows of markers and flowers Dad mentioned that he and his wife had already purchased their spaces at a cemetery near where they live now.  It's not something I wanted to think or talk about, so I left his words to linger and fade without a response.  At the same time, I marveled at how he spoke of his own mortality with such matter-of-factness.

I think Dad is in a really good place these days.  There's an ease in him now that wasn't always there.  A contentment.  He seems to have found the answers to some of life's many questions.  It gives me hope that I, who take after him in so many other ways, will do the same.

He's all over Facebook now.  He mentioned it on at least six separate occasions during our excursion Saturday.  And when I called to see if he wanted to do this for Father's Day, he was at the gym.

We leave each other with a hug instead of a handshake anymore.  And the "I love yous" are no longer just implied.

But not everything has changed. He's still playing the guitar, still working, still driving the same old Chevy truck, which seems to always be barely running.  He's still in church every Sunday morning and night.  And he remains quite taken with his role as a grandpa.  "Peepaw," Nephew Bone calls him.  Some might say it's the role he was born to play.

Me, I always kinda thought he made a pretty good dad.

"I notice I walk the way he walks / I notice I talk the way he talks / I'm startin' to see / My father in me..."

The cemetery trees

It's nothing grandiose.  Sitting on the littlest of hills, surrounded by a chain-link fence, just far enough away from everything so that you can barely hear the cars from the nearest paved road.  A few trees watch over irregular rows of hewn stones, and the bones of those dearly departed.

I have come here at times alone -- to think, and to talk.  To my grandma (mamaw), or maybe just to the wind.  But I have not been here in a long while.  Too long.  Usually it is quiet.  I find a peacefulness here.  But not today.

Today is Decoration Day at the cemetery where most of my mom's family is buried.  It's a day for socializing.  I speak to relatives.  Most I know and recognize.  Some I remember after they introduce themselves.  A couple I pretend to know and wait until I can grab the arm of an aunt or uncle later to ask who that was.

"There's fewer of us every year."

My youngest aunt says this to me, perhaps verbalizing what others are only thinking.  I give a resigned nod.  Though I'm not certain about every year, I definitely notice it this year.  Of twenty-nine first cousins, I only count ten of us there, including me.  Five of my mom's seven living brothers and sisters are there.  This is often the only time of the year I see my one uncle and aunt.  They have a grandson that looks to be twelve or thirteen that I probably haven't seen since he was a baby. 

Don't get me wrong, there were still a lot of people there.  Just not as many as I remember.  The sparseness perhaps exacerbated by the presence of two giant barren trees in the midst of the cemetery.  For as long as I can remember, those two trees provided ample shade near most of my family's graves.  They played the songs of the wind.  But something has killed them since the last time I was here.  And as I stand there in the unrelenting sun, I realize like too much of life, I have only come to truly appreciate them in their absence.

One highlight of the day is my 86-year-old great uncle.  He is the last one living of his siblings, the last link to my mamaw's generation.  And he has no kids, so it has been left to my mother and a couple of her siblings to see after him.  On this day, my youngest uncle has gone by to get him and rolled him out to a shady spot.  There he sits in his wheelchair as people walk up and talk to him.

I get into a conversation with an uncle and a cousin about my great grandmother, who was half-Cherokee.  My uncle did some genealogy research a few years ago and tells us that during the Indian Removal my great-grandmother and her family identified themselves as "black Dutch," denying their ancestry in fear of being sent West.  These are the stories I love, and crave.

But it's a hotter-than-normal May morning, and with the lack of much shade, we are not long at the cemetery.  After maybe an hour, several of us head over to fave aunt's for a cookout and more family time.  My great uncle is there, too.  I watch him eating and I wish all his days were this good.  He was recently diagnosed with cancer and decided against treatment.

Later I see that he has just about dozed off.  One of the kids runs by and bumps his chair, jolting him awake.  He smiles at her and nods.  And in that instant -- the kind eyes, the almost sad smile -- I see my mamaw, so clearly it scares me.

Eventually, after everyone has eaten, another uncle sits down at the piano.  My mom and two of my aunts join him to sing, mostly old gospel hymns.  Like so much of the rest of this day, this is a family tradition.

During one of the songs, I start to feel overcome with emotion.  Maybe it's thinking about my aunts and uncles getting older, or maybe it's just the culmination of the entire day.  Whatever it is, it hits me out of nowhere.  I hurry to the bathroom so no one will see, close the door, and I sob.  For thirty seconds.  Then I'm OK again.

I get a moment away from the others to speak to one of my older cousins.  I tell him I wonder what will happen to Decoration Day once our parents' generation is gone.  He says it will be up to us.  I know "us" may only mean a few of us.  But I feel better knowing it matters to him.

Tradition, family, the future -- I ponder these things often the next several days.  And I decide I should see about planting a new tree.

"On the other side / Do you ever see me cry / Do you know how much I miss you / Wish I could have said goodbye..."

Branches and roots

Monday was Dad's birthday. I know I haven't posted any updates lately, but he is doing very well. He claims to be walking everyday like he's supposed to, and he recently started a new job. I found myself appreciating his birthday and Father's Day a bit more this year.

Sunday afternoon, we took him out for birthday lunch. He was going on and on about a hydrogen fuel cell or something, so I know he's back to normal. Of course, now I'm expecting just any day to see him on the news: Man Blows Garage Off House. After all, Dad's all about making the blog.

After lunch, we went to the cemetery where Dad's parents are buried. (Doesn't everyone visit the cemetery on their birthday?) I'm ashamed to say I didn't remember exactly how to get there. I've probably only been four or five times that I remember. For whatever reasons, we never visited it as much as we did Mom's family's cemetery.

We were just never as close with Dad's family. First of all, Mom had eleven brothers and sisters. Dad only had two half-brothers, and they were both fifteen to twenty years older than him. Dad was the baby of everyone, by far. At least one of his first cousins was thirty years older than him. He's actually about the same age as his nephew, who I got to meet when Dad was in the hospital for his open heart surgery.

Riding down the quiet, narrow two-lane road that leads to the cemetery, I looked at Dad and tried to imagine what he must be thinking and feeling, about to visit the site where his parents were laid to rest. I couldn't. But in that instant, I appreciated him and I appreciated the day even more.

When we arrived, I instinctively headed for my grandmother's grave. My grandfather's first wife died young and he is buried next to her with a joint headstone. About ten feet away sits my grandmother's stone, all by itself. It breaks my heart all over again every time I see it. Maybe because it seems all too fitting.

As I said earlier, we gravitated more towards Mom's family. Dad's father died when I was one. My grandmother had a serious car accident not long after that and never drove again. I remember Dad would go get her on Christmas Eve day and she would bring presents for us. They were really bad presents, too, like athletic socks with wide red stripes and bad games like dominoes or something. And I feel guilty even as I'm typing this.

Then we'd spend Christmas Eve at my other grandma's house with Mom's family, and we'd go back there for lunch on Christmas Day. I remember sometime on Christmas afternoon, Mamaw or Mom or one of my aunts would fix up a plate and put tin foil over it and Dad would take it to his mother.

And in her whole life, as long as I knew her, she never once complained. Of course, now I wonder why was it like that? And I imagine her sitting there on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning all by herself. And I can't think about it without becoming deeply saddened. And I just want to tell her I'm sorry now, but I can't. So that's why it breaks my heart anew each time I visit her grave.

Sunday afternoon, I walked around more than usual and tried to find more Bone family graves. It's an old cemetery with lots of graves dating back to the 1800's. There were two Bones who were in the Confederate army and one who served in WWII.

With Mom's family, I've heard many stories. And what I don't know, I still have Mom, four uncles and three aunts that I can ask. But with Dad's family, I hardly know anything. And there's no one left to ask other than Dad. So I asked lots of questions, trying to learn all I could.

I don't know why it had never hit me before, but I realized that my grandmother was the only person buried there that I had actually known. And I miss her, for sure. But standing there Sunday, I found myself missing relatives that I never met.

That started me thinking about doing research on Dad's family. I want to get to know, at least in some small way, the family I never knew. I want to write things down and be able to pass along stories to the next generation. And if I don't do it, who will?

Dad told one story Sunday that I'd never heard before, although not family related. We passed a house where a classmate of his had lived many moons ago. Dad said he drew the boy's name for the Christmas party in sixth grade, so one day he asked him what he wanted. The boy's response? "You can just get me some cigarettes."

"If heaven was a town, it would be my town, on a summer day in 1985. And everything I wanted was out there waiting, and everyone I loved was still alive..."