In Memoriam

We had the memorial service for my mom this weekend.

I was there for the whole week prior, and so was my brother (his spring break). My sister is staying there over her spring break this week. We spent time clearing a trail to the back of the property … and generally getting to know each other. It’s odd, but I hardly know my siblings at all. I left for college when they were 9 and 7 years old. They’re both really cool, smart, brave, insightful people, and I’m incredibly proud to be related to both of them.

amnesiadust arrived by train on Thursday night. As per tradition, his train was delayed getting into Richmond. Amusingly, the arrival board at the train station said “on time” until half an hour after the scheduled time. Then it switched to “arrived,” and the listing finally disappeared … with no train in sight. On the way to the house, we talked about how long we’ve known each other (18 years), and how you never seem to know – at the time – which friends will be the ones you know a decade hence.

On Friday morning at about 3am, redmed sent a text message indicating that she had stopped at a hotel in Richmond, after the hotels in Norfolk (where her flight arrived) were full. She’s crazy.

Friday, people began to arrive in ernest. Friends from college, relatives, neighbors … we wound up with perhaps 75 people gathered in the school house. A standing room crowd. Rich and poor, black and white, local and remote. People drove up the street and also drove from Wisconsin.

My dad rang the school bell at 7pm, and spoke about my mom for a while. Stories about how she loved to compete with the boys in the boy scout troop that her father led … how she bested them in marksmanship with pistol and shotgun. Stories about how the two of them met … how the friends who had introduced them were there in the room. Stories of getting married, moving to the country together, having children, moving to the city and then back to the country again. Stories about meeting the Dalai Lama … about how she built communities and brought people together all through her life. It was incredibly moving.

The chaplain who ministered to my dad at the hospital said an invocation and a prayer.

I said a couple of words … which was both easier and harder than I expected. Easier, because once I had the words picked out … it was just speaking to a crowd on a topic I know. Harder, because I’ve never watched my audience crumble into tears in front of me.

My mom’s friend Sunny Lentz read some reminiscences. She had painted a watercolor of a scene with my mom in the garden. It’s hanging in the schoolhouse now.

My cousin, Bob Milne was there, and he we asked him to play. The man is amazing. He rolled from Scott Joplin into Amazing Grace … leading us to sing … and back again when we didn’t know the rest of the words. Then my dad asked the local Baptist Choir if they would sing. This was traditional, old-school, black southern baptist choir music. About 9 women absolutely sang their guts out … they rocked the floor, shook the windows, and consecrated the space with “We Are Standing on Holy Ground.”

After that, Bob moved on to a more New Orleans party mode and we began to clear chairs and circulate. I spent three or four hours getting to know the community … the friends … the family. I talked to folks I had last met as a child … folks I had never met but maybe should have.

Eventually, people trickled away into the night. Wine came out, and the laughter got louder and easier. My brother sat with my cousin and showed him sleight of hand … we swapped stories and re-connected. I wound up in the hot tub at about 2am, laughing and singing.

Saturday we had the house open all day. People hung out, walked the trail, cooked and ate together, built fires, played music, and generally relaxed.

It was amazing to me to look at the crowd and see the familiar social roles … there in my sister’s friends, my father’s friends … I saw the same interactions that I have with my friends. A familiar curve in the river, just filled with different water.

Aaron Brown‘s parents made the drive down. I’m eternally grateful that I don’t have anyone to be the focus of anger. They had to deal with the grief of losing a child, and also seek out justice for a wrong that had been done to them. Their embraces were heartfelt. They all were.

Today, I feel that it’s a little bit more okay to move on … to resume the patterns of normal life. We’ll continue to celebrate her, in little ways, for the rest of our lives.