Jeff wanted to be cremated. A shiny brass urn containing his ashes was displayed on the church altar during his memorial service. I found it oddly comforting to be in the same room with this physical manifestation of my cousin. We were not able to visit one another in person for many years, for a variety of reasons, although we did stay in touch from time to time through telephone calls, Christmas cards, and emails. I think we both did the best we could to stay in relationship with each other.
After the service, about a dozen members of my extended family gathered in the church vestibule. I removed my mother's Pikeville High School class of 1945 ring from my hand and held it out to show to Jeff's father, my uncle Edgar. He is 83 years old. He graduated two years before my mother, in 1943. I asked him if he still has his class ring. I was not prepared for his reply. Although he didn't shed a tear during the memorial service, his eyes became misty and he said, with his voice cracking just a bit, that he sold his ring to a German soldier for a bowl of soup. My uncle was a prisoner of war in Europe in World War II.
An hush settled over my family. To the best of my knowledge, Uncle Edgar has seldom if ever talked about his experiences as a POW. I wish I could have handled his disclosure better, but there is no way I could have seen it coming. After an awkward moment, I reached over and gave his arm a gentle pat. Maybe losing his son has brought back memories of other losses he has suffered, such as his sister, his freedom during the war, and his class ring.
The day before my trip, I carefully turned the numbers of the combination lock on the fireproof safe that contains some of my most special possessions. The metal door swung open, and I retrieved a small jewelry box and lifted my mother's ring from from its cushion. I slid the bulky gold ring on the fourth finger of my right hand. Although some of its embossed details have become worn and smooth over time, the numerals "1945" are still clearly visible. I feel a little uneasy about wearing this ring, because I am not sure my mother would have wanted me to have it. She died too young to think about things like the disposition of her personal effects, so I am not sure what her wishes would have been.
At the church, a couple of elderly ladies told me a story they remembered about my mother. One sunny day they rode their bicycles down to a lake in Millard, Kentucky where they swam all day, during the summer between my mother's high school graduation and her freshman year at Pikeville College, before she met my father. My mother, a fair-skinned redhead, got a blistering sunburn that day, and spent the whole next day in bed. This story about the past made me smile. It is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, giving me a glimpse of a picture that I have never seen whole.
In my rental car, winding my way up Mountain Parkway from Pikeville back to Bluegrass Field Airport in Lexington after the funeral, I had a chance to enjoy the early autumn scenery. It seemed exotic in contrast to the verdant Florida palmetto flats where I live. Leaves on the trees were beginning to turn shades of copper, golden ochre, russet, and burnt sienna. Vertical expanses of ancient rocky hills rose up like earthen monuments on either side of the highway, touching the sky. One farm I noticed still had tobacco leaves, brown and ruffled, hanging in the barn to dry. Other farms along the parkway, in lieu of billboards, displayed advertisments for products such as lite beer and chewing tobacco on the sides of their barns. I have happy memories of riding through these parts as a child, seeing ads for Ruby Falls and Burma Shave painted on the barns. Exit signs along the parkway for Morgan County and Hazel Green brought back fond memories of my paternal grandfather who served as a minister at Disciples of Christ churches in those areas. All of my history is here in the Eastern Kentucky foothills. I exist because of the Scots-Irish immigrants and indigenous Cherokees who wove their lives together and raised families on this land. I am a result of their circumstances, choices, successes and failures.
Sometimes I think about my mother as a girl, growing up in these Appalachian hills. I am not sure what her hopes and dreams were for her future. The demands of marriage, motherhood, and medical problems overwhelmed her. When I enrolled in college for my freshman year, my dad accompanied me on registration day. As we strolled across campus to the Registrars Office, he commented that I looked a lot like my mother when she was my age. This surprised me, as he never talked about her much after her death and I assumed that he had forgotten her. I am a continuation of my mother, but I am not sure exactly what I am continuing. I have sometimes felt as though I was left alone on this planet to invent myself, with few ties to anyone. I wonder how life would have been different if she had lived.
My family relationships often feel tenuous. I wonder if other people have similar feelings about their families. I feel happiest when I am creating something beautiful and when I’m helping other sentient beings. My watercolor paintings, my photography, my cats and dogs, Jack, my church, and my patients give my life meaning. I am connected to my family by ashes, a class ring, and being present in Pikeville for the survivors at Jeff’s memorial service, sitting shoulder to shoulder with my cousins and other kin in the reserved family section of the church.
I wonder if I will always feel as though something is missing. Maybe a good philosophy to adopt is that we are all doing the best we can, given our strengths and weaknesses, at the curent stage in our lives and our personal growth. Everything is perfect and imperfect, all at the same time. Always.
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