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..."

A part of me

I do hereby proclaim this National Blog Something From Draft Week. This marks the second big year for this great but scarcely observed occasion which was begun way back in 2008. It is a day, er week, for posts that otherwise would have never seen the light of day, and maybe never should have. Remember our slogan: "Someday we'll look back at this and cringe!" Feel free to join in, if you dare. It's the next best thing to not blogging at all. And so without further ado, here is my entry for NaBloSoFroDraWe 2009.

A part of me will always be seven years old. I remember being woken up in the middle of the night when Momma told Daddy it was time to go. It seemed so inconvenient then. That was the only time I ever saw him run a red light. And I remember sitting in the waiting room by myself, feeling lonely but not scared. Then they told me you've got a baby sister. It's funny, but now I can't remember much at all about those first seven years.

A part of me will always be nineteen at the foot of those stairs. Coming home that night, I remember thinking it was odd that Momma's car wasn't there. Daddy met me at the door, and there was that kicked-in-the-stomach feeling as I shook my head at the words I wished he wasn't saying. I think that's the first time I ever truly felt death--the shock and the sense of loss. I remember trying to cry when they laid Mamaw to rest. And thinking to myself, "I'll miss you." But I just didn't know. I'll always hate that cursed day and harbor that emptiness.

A part of me will always be barefoot on that beach. I was twenty-three but I felt like a kid the first time I ever saw the edge of dry land. I remember breathing in that sweet air and rolling up my jeans to let the cold water run over my feet. And thinking this was the place that I was always supposed to be. Everytime still feels a lot like that first time, and I still feel like a kid. However far away I go, I'll always long to be there, knees pulled to my chest, listening to the song of the sea and feeling like I'm home.

A part of me will always be on the phone with you at 6 AM. I remember the daylight through the blinds and realizing we had talked all night long. Yet and still I didn't want to let you go. Love was new and it felt so good to let your warmth wash over my soul. And I remember two years later trying to hold on and feeling helpless as you moved further from my grasp. We haven't spoken since and we probably never will. But now and then I will always wonder where you've gotten to.

I don't know if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And I've heard it said that you lose parts of yourself along the way. But I might disagree. I think I carry all those parts with me as I go, these and a thousand more, somewhere inside. I think I always will.

"You're on every highway just beyond the high beams, right beside me in all of my sweet dreams. No matter where you choose to be, in my heart I'll always see you everywhere..."

A thousand words doesn't begin to cover it

It was one of those mid-December days in the teens--the thirteenth or seventeenth, maybe--that all seem to run together. A lady came by looking for my mother. She was accompanied by a younger woman and two girls who I would later learn were her daughter and two granddaughters. Not recognizing them, I was reluctant at first to share any information.

Then as she started to leave, she said, "We're related to her."

"Oh... well, I'm her son."

Upon hearing that she sat her purse down and opened it. In a few seconds, she produced a small, somewhat worn flip photo album.

"Here's what I wanted to show her."

She opened the album. It was filled with pictures of my aunts and uncles when they were kids, teens, and newlyweds. In all, eight of Mom's eleven brothers and sisters were in at least one pictures. And most of them were in several. There were pictures of Mamaw and Papaw, great aunts and great uncles, and even my great grandmother. Pictures I had never seen. Most of them black and white.

I was overwhelmed. I had never seen more than a handful of photographs of my family from those days. As she flipped to each new picture, she would pause to see if I recognized the people in it. Sometimes I did. And if I didn't, when she told me who it was, I would see it immediately and smile and shake my head in amazement. Each photograph was priceless.

One picture had an old wall calendar in the background that dated it at 1968. Another had my fave aunt in it as a teenager. She was wearing a Bama t-shirt and looking a tad mischievous. Then there was one of Mom's elementary school pictures. And near the end of the album, a picture of Mom and Dad together, with Dad holding a guitar. I guess some things never change.

Some of the pictures would elicit a story from her, this lady who I found out during the course of conversation had married one of Mom's first cousins. The people I didn't know were almost as interesting to see and hear about as the people I did.

One picture was of my Uncle R with his arm around some girl I didn't know. They looked happy and young and full of life. I knew Uncle R wasn't married until he was in his forties.

"That's Alice," she said, as if sensing I was about to ask. "Oh, they were so in love. Those two would have gotten married but her daddy stopped it."

"Did her daddy have a problem with Uncle R?"

"He didn't want his daughter to marry R because of his..." She motioned her hand, unable to think of the word.

"Epilepsy." I finished her sentence. Uncle R had pretty severe seizures as long as I knew him. He died when he was fifty, just three months after Mamaw passed away. Hearing this story, I was very sad for him.

There was a picture of my Great Uncle J, who I'd never seen. His hair was slicked back and he had a Clark Gable moustache which caused me to remark that it looked like he was a ladies' man.

"Oh, you have no idea." She then proceeded to tell a story of how he got a job at a restaurant and dated a waitress there until his first paycheck, then he quit. He called the waitress and told her he couldn't work anymore because he'd been in a bad wreck and broke his arm, his leg, and several ribs, none of which was true.

There must have been fifty pictures or more, and I guess we sat there thirty or forty-five minutes looking through every one and talking about them. My eyes had already gotten moist. Then when we were done, she held out the album as if to give it to me.

"Oh, no. I couldn't possibly..."

"Yes. That's what I brought it for. I figured your mother would like to see these."

I was floored. There were no words to express my gratitude or emotions in that moment.

An idea occurred to me, so I asked her if it would be alright if I wrapped up the photo album and gave it to Mom "from Santa" for Christmas. She said she would like that very much. I promised her I'd guard them with my life. I told her I'd be sure Mom knew that she was the one responsible for the pictures, and even had her write her name and number on a piece of paper and slipped it inside the front cover.

I'm sure I told her thank you at least ten times. And before she got up to leave, still shaking my head in amazement, I said, "This is Christmas."

And it was.

"Here's the last one that we ever took of Daddy. We tried hard to make him smile but never did. And here's one I caught of you when you weren't ready. And here I am when I was just a kid..."

Take me home...

A few weeks ago I found myself on a road I've been on many times before. A two-lane country road not all that distinguishable from any of ten thousand others. It wasn't the most direct way to get to where I was going that day, but it was the way I needed to take. As I drove, I remembered. And though I never lived on that road, it felt like years of my life had been spent there.

Almost immediately, I recalled an icy night some years ago that resulted in a scarcely visible dent beneath the passenger side door of my Jeep. Suffice it to say the fourth mailbox on the right side of the road used to be wooden. You never forget your first.

A little further down I passed the old ball field, still standing but barely. The roofs gone off both of the concrete dugouts. The outfield fence rusted and torn down in places. The grass grown high. I remember when it came to life almost every summer night with bright lights, kids playing, parents cheering, coaches yelling.

If you take a left across from the ball field, it'll take you past the high school and the football field where one cold January morning I ran headfirst into the goalpost while not wearing a helmet. (Not intentionally.) Being knocked unconscious isn't loads of fun when it happens, but it makes for a decent story later.

But I didn't drive out by the school. I stayed on my current path, and I knew what was next. It's the fifth road on the left after you pass the Baptist church. The memories started to come. I pressed on the gas a little harder, maybe hoping I could outrun them. I loved a girl who lived down that road, and probably always will.

Almost to the top of the hill is the cut off to Roller Coaster Road. I'm sure I smiled as I passed it, thinking about all the afternoons spent running wide open up and down those hills. Top down. Stomach flipping. And time to burn.

The thought of turning around and taking one more ride on Roller Coaster Road briefly crossed my mind but I continued on, down the hill and finally to the stop sign. There on the corner is a little country store. Or used to be. It's been closed for years now, but the building is still there, looking dilapidated at best.

Some nights we would stop there and get a cold drink out of the machine after parking in the cotton fields, if we had enough change and enough time before daylight. I don't know what good it would have done, but part of me wished the store was still open. And I probably would have stopped off for a coke if it had been.

If you go straight at the stop sign, the paved road ends and dirt roads lead through miles of cotton fields. There are a couple of sharp curves and if you don't know the road well, perhaps on a foggy night, your friend's car might end up in a cotton field, on its side. And you might have to go back the next day to help him push it over so that another friend can tow it home.

I turned left at the stop sign. It was Thanksgiving day, and I had decided to visit the cemetery. Mamaw and Uncle J had been such a huge part of Thanksgiving for so many years, it just felt right to pay them a visit.

As I left that two-lane country road behind for another, I was astounded by how many memories were associated with that single stretch of highway. I felt a sense of home. I felt grounded.

There's something comforting in a place like that. Knowing that the memories are always there, just waiting until the next time I take a slight detour from life and go for a drive down that road. A road I know so well it feels like I could drive it with my eyes closed.

And sometimes I think I did.

"Ain't that just like a dream, runnin' wild and runnin' free. We were rebels chasin' time against the wind. Sometimes I long for just one night of the way I felt back then. But ain't that just like a dream, it always ends..."