You make it a point to grab your sunglasses. It's cloudy but there will come a moment when you need to hide your eyes and smile. Today you make the drive alone, leaving the wife and angels at home. You know the road well though you've not driven it in a year. It's Decoration Day.
Every road, field, and closed-down business you pass seems to hold a memory. The old Dairy Queen where you spent so many nights in your twenties -- it was a wild decade.
There are sheets and shards of rusted tin where the flea market once stood, bustling every Saturday and Sunday forty years ago.
Most of the backstop is still standing behind the old little league field where you'd watch your cousin play. The rest of the fence is gone, but the dilapidated dugouts, bleachers, and press box stand as an effigy to a thousand mosquitoed spring and summer evenings under floodlights.
Down a holler and back up the other side is the turn-off for Roller Coaster Road. Do kids today still fly down it, pushing a hundred? Or has that gone the way of cassette players, hanging out at the arcade, and twenty-five-cent phone calls? Either way, you're thankful for those heart-flipping days of twenty-something.
When you pass the old Pit Stop, you look to see if the payphone booth is still there. It is, though there's been no phone in it for many years. A thought begins to form. You've been inside more of the closed-down businesses on this road than the handful of new ones that have popped up.
Next up is the spot where the paved road once ended and came to a T. Where one night LJ flipped his baby blue Taurus, and you climbed out the passenger window, which was at that time serving as the top of the vehicle.
There's no longer a T. And the road is paved all the way through now, which is probably safer, if less conducive t- certain one-day-we'll-look-back-and laugh memories.
Finally, you pass the last two churches you ever stepped foot in. First is the church your father still attends. You count six cars in the parking lot. You feel sad. And a little guilty.
Less than two miles past that is what you will only ever refer to as Mamaw's church. You think about her teaching the little kids in Sunday school before taking her place as a fixture on the second row every week.
Once you leave the blacktop, you shift into a different gear. About three-quarters of a mile down a well-shaded dirt road, you turn onto another unpaved road that leads up to the cemetery.
You count the cars. There are maybe nine or ten -- fewer each year. Somehow the small smattering of still-breathing souls makes the cemetery seem more lonesome than if there were no one here at all.
A decade ago, there would be cars sitting off in the grass on both sides. You'd have to park halfway down the road and walk up, but today you park just across from the gate. One last deep breath to prepare and a straightening of the sunglasses.
There are maybe twenty people spread sparsely around the property. You say hello to fave aunt and one first cousin who are sitting just inside the fence under a grove of trees. The sun has come out now.
You come to Uncle John's grave first. He is buried by the south fence, away from most of the rest of the family, as they ran out of room in that area. His widow -- your aunt -- and two of his four children are present today.
As you will be several times today, you are jarred by the date of death and left in near disbelief at how long someone has been gone.
Just past him, also right along the fence, you see Mister L.A.'s grave next to his beloved Miss Mary. A faded American flag flies above them -- his dying wish. The thought elicits a sad smile.
You make the left turn past Baby Boy Campbell's gravesite (birth and death dates unknown). As always, you catch a chill. And it has nothing to do with the westerly breeze, which is welcomed by all on this predictably humid, late May morn.
Many of the graves are poorly marked. You do your best to not step on any as you make your way northward to where your mother is talking with one of her eldest nephews.
Of your mother's eleven siblings, only two have shown up today. One is too sick, another lives in Florida, and a third you're not sure about. Six of the seven who have already passed are buried here.
You try and count your first cousins. Out of thirty-one on your mom's side, twenty-nine of whom are still living, you are one of five here.
Your mom and cousin stand, maybe out of habit, where the huge eastern red cedar tree once stood. It was struck down by lightning some years ago. In its time, there would always be seven, eight, or ten gathered on the shady side, taking shelter from the unforgiving Alabama sun. Your bald head feels its absence more than most.
You survey more dates and headstones and realize that your chain-smoking uncle died at fifty, less than four months after his mother. He and his wife babysat you and your sister a few times. They'd let you roll cigarettes for them. Back then, they looked so very old, but would have been younger than you are today.
One cousin takes his daughters--ages 17 and 20--around, showing them the names on the headstones and explaining who each family member is. He relays a story about each -- those he has memories of anyway. The girls vow they will continue to come back here, that the graves won't be forgotten. You hope it's true.
It's one tradition that hasn't changed, even with so many fewer people. There are always the stories. And usually at least one you have never heard.
Today's is about how "Uncle Wiley" accidentally killed his three-year-old son. There are two very different versions that you hear on the very same day. Mom says he had gone into a store and thought his son was still in the truck. When he came out, he backed over him. Fave aunt says he was loading hay bales onto the back of a truck, one went over the other side and landed on his boy.
You're unsure which is most likely to be true. Heck, you still haven't gotten a consistent story on your uncle who served time for second-degree murder. The woman he was in love with supposedly paid a man to kill someone else, but claimed my uncle was the one who had paid them.
"She set him up" and "He just loved her so much, he took the fall for it" seem to be the most common explanations you hear. He was sentenced to twenty years, though I'm fairly certain he served less than that.
And there again, as you always do on this day, you think to yourself how you need to ask more questions, listen to more stories, and write them down. But will you?
You should. Somebody should.
The voices of the storytellers are steadily fading.
