To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. —Thomas Campbell
A few days ago, I drove into the country down a crooked back road. Crooked though it was, I knew the road well. Eventually, I spotted a lopsided metal sign with decades of patina and turned down a partially obscured gravel drive. The road leads to a cemetery– a place I do not often visit. Everyone is different about that kind of thing.
I did not have to look for the plot. I well know where it is. I approached the stone– a double stone. On the left side was the image of an open book with “mother” etched on the fore edge. I read the inscription; a name and two dates. My grandmother is buried beneath the stone. It is a nice marker. I am sure it was lovingly chosen by the family. Yet I found myself thinking, this is not enough. The truth is, no headstone is ever enough. At some point, we all face the reality of looking at a loved one’s life etched in stone. Please do not misunderstand, it is a dignified gesture. Through my research for the latest project, I have been reminded that the bodies of countless thousands of people have returned to the dust without any special recognition for the place in which it occurred. It is a respectable tradition, but I doubt I will get any pushback if I suggest a marker is never adequate to tell the story of a life.
Gladys Oleta Trail Jones, my grandmother, is the person to whom I dedicated my first book, Dunnigan. The book is fiction, but she inspired many of the story elements for the character of Sara, even though Sara’s life was very different from hers in some ways. When I think about her, I do not think about her death. Of course, I am painfully aware that she is no longer with me on this earth, but that is not the part that lingers over my memory. The words read at the funeral, “Gladys Oleta Trail Jones, age 82, of Manchester, died September 22, 2003,” are not the story of my grandmother– not for me.
She loved to read. She loved to laugh. She had a firm mastery of sheet music. She sang out loud and often. She had a red swing in her backyard that sometimes needed a new coat of paint. One summer, when I was about six or seven, she let me be the one to repaint it. We later sat in the same swing and restuffed feather pillows. She once got me a puppy and asked my parents for forgiveness instead of permission (he turned out to be a great dog). She stayed with us for a time and taught me multiplication facts by reciting them with me each night as we fell asleep. She could fix a mean fried apple pie. Another of her specialties was a chocolate pie with ‘calf slobbers’ (that’s meringue to you city folk). She used to be one of the few women in her community with a car, which I now find funny because her driving scared me. She pouted when I got spankings– after all, I never deserved them (OK, I deserved pretty much all of them.) She did not like to smile for pictures but had a great smile. She was a sucker for a stray dog or cat. She was forever trying to convince me to get a ‘pageboy’ haircut because my hair stayed in my eyes most of the time. A Butterfinger candy bar cut in half with a kitchen knife was our special treat. She let me and my cousin use her lipstick to do native American face paintings on each other. She had a strong will to carry on through all sorts of life challenges. She loved God.
No, the name and dates on the headstone do not tell too much of her story. I could keep writing for hours. Others could write about her in the same manner, and yet their anecdotes would be entirely different. The story of her life is a long and detailed one. The story of your life is too.
When all is said and done, your story will not be written on your tombstone or even told by the longest of eulogies. It will be written on the hearts and minds of those whom you loved and were loved by you.
Write it well.
Roadtrip to Asheville, NC
Our last special outing together, May 2003.
In Memory
"Ma"
Gladys Oleta Trail Jones
May 18, 1921 - September 22, 2003
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