Cemetery Selfies

Driving down the canyon to meet a few of the kids and grandies for a "last supper" of sorts for our soon to depart from us daughter-in-law and her two little girls before they relocate to the other side of the country; the warmer side, also known as Florida. I didn't want to run into rush hour traffic, so I left a few hours early so I could enjoy the beautiful drive. "Today is the anniversary of our moving into the cabin.....oh yes.....and also the anniversary of Mama passing..." I think to myself as I steer past the Bridal Veil Falls. Dave had been so thoughtful to postpone our move-in date to coordinate the two events; the one helping to soften the blow of the other. It was a method at the time, and this year it seems to have worked.

I ask Siri to give me directions to South Jordan in case there are any traffic events that would get me stuck and make me late to meet the kids. To my surprise, Siri suggests I take State Street and avoid the freeway entirely. Fine with me; I don't love the freeway but at least I'm not terrified of it the way I was five years ago. Five years ago, driving on the freeway could instigate a full-on panic attack; tunnel-vision and a sense of my body moving at a different speed of the car. For months the only way I could describe the feeling was that an entire piece of my body was missing.

March 1989. Seven months pregnant and hoisting my toddler daughter on my hip, I walked slowly down the hall and in and out of each room of the now nearly empty house of my parent's home in Mesa, Arizona.

The home I'd lived in from age twelve until I married at eighteen, it was walking distance to both my Jr. High and my little brother's elementary school. My friend Greg would carry my books every day after school, walking me home before continuing on to his own house. Often we'd sit on the Bermuda grass lawn in the shade, talking and laughing about things that twelve-year-old's talk and laugh about. One year when I was fifteen, my mother announced she was going to purchase some new tires for the family car. She did come home with four brand new tires attached to a brand car. That was the car I learned to drive on. A Nissan Sentra, manual transmission. I stalled out at more than one traffic light; panicked at trying to remember how to shift back into first gear, and even more panicked at the line of cars growing behind me.

By the front door was a hanging porch swing, mostly hidden by two white pillars of overgrown honeysuckle. Hot summer evenings slowly swinging back and forth with friends, the air buzzing with the sounds of cicadas. After I turned sixteen and was allowed to date, this front door was where I was accompanied back home. My parents bedroom at the end of the hall and to the left would have the glow of the night-stand lamp streaming under the door. Hear the low snoring of my dad, I'd knock softly, "Come on in honey", my mother would quietly say, patting her side of the bed indicating I come sit next to her and tell her about my evening out. "Okay, I'm glad you're home. I'll see you in the morning; don't forget to lock the front door." "I already did when I came in. Goodnight Mama, I love you." "I love you too sweetie; sweet dreams." And then I'd give her a kiss, and usually my still almost fully asleep father would turn on his side and wrap his arm over my mother's side. I'd quietly shut their bedroom door all the way; because that's how their bedroom door had always been all my life. Walking across the hall to my own bedroom, the moon-light coming through the sheer blue-lace curtains was enough light for me to find my nightgown and turn my radio onto some FM station.

For several years we had a family summer pass to the Jr. High pool. My brothers and I lived our days on the pool deck, taking a few found coins so we could buy a small box of lemon-heads or some other candy. We'd come home after a day of swimming exhausted and starving, and often fall asleep on the living room floor with the air vent of the evaporative cooler blowing directly on us. Eventually we had a pool installed in the back-yard; twelve feet deep at one end so my little brother could safely dive. I wasn't much for swimming, just dipping in the water to cool off and then lay back down on a towel until I got too hot again and then rinse and repeat.

My father built a picnic table for the back-yard and we had as many meals as possible al fresco. He also installed a clothes-line at my mother's request. My parents never owned a dish-washer or a clothes dryer until years after I left home. At the opposite end of the yard was a massive garden/compost pile and for a while a couple of chickens free-ranged around the side of the house just outside my bedroom window.

Daddy rode his bicycle to work every day. We were a one-car family, and if I wanted to take the car anywhere I had to scrounge up change for gas. One night I came home extremely late from a date. Daddy was awake and waiting for me when I got home. I was terrified. All he said to me was, "Next time you want to take the car somewhere, don't bother asking, because the answer will be no." "Okay Daddy, I'm so sorry...." The next time eventually did come around; I dared to ask if I could take the car, he reminded me of what he'd already told me. I begged and pleaded as though we'd never had the previous conversation. He relented, and somehow that made me feel even worse.

Making my way back down the hall and into the kitchen, I opened the door to the carport. Daddy was stacking the U-haul boxes along the wall of the carport. "Grand-pa!" Natalie slid down my hip and toddled over to his open arms. "Natalie! Give Grand-pa a kiss!" My arms now freed up, I held the video recorder up to capture the moment. Another "last". As I looked through the view-finder, my heart was filled with a mixture of love and dread. How could I make this moment last forever? How could my parents move miles and miles away from me when I'd never lived apart from them since I'd been born? Does this mean I have to really grow up now? And why do they not seem very sad to be moving away from me? "Allyson, come stand out here in front of the house and let's take a picture of you in front of it for the last time." Okay....that's probably a good idea. I lifted Natalie back up onto my hip and we both smiled; she smiling because she sees her grand-parents smiling at her and not having a clue of what's going on, me smiling because it wouldn't be cute to ugly cry for a photograph.

Siri now is showing that after State Street I should turn right onto Redwood Road. Oohhh okay, so apparently it is the Siri's idea to have me drive right past the cemetery where my parents are laid to rest. Very clever. I can do this though; there was no panicky driving, just a beautiful Fall day, so to the cemetery I go.

It takes me a few minutes to find the right plot. Dave usually is with me and he has good direction. I, on the other hand, get lost very easily. It's so warm today, and there is not another person to be found (not another living person anyway). I sit down on the grass and look at my phone to check the time; I still have about an hour and a half before I have to meet the kids. I open my music app and select my 70's playlist, avoiding songs I played the day Mama passed; I haven't crossed that hurdle yet. The sun is getting lower in the sky and I feel it warm on my face. "No one is here, may as well do a cemetery selfie..."

I take a few pics, and realize that I've gone and broken my own rule of not having anything to do with things like the sunshine on my shoulders, and in my eyes making me cry and and that John Denver mumbo jumbo stuff that gives me all the weepy crying feels. But just as I think I might lie down on top of the grass that covers the mortal bodies of my parents and have myself a proper little fit/cry that my twelve-year-old self would be proud of, I look over to the other side of the small one-way street of the memorial and there is a family that has just pulled over and is unloading what looks to be a little picnic. "i wonder if they saw me taking a selfie...maybe they just think I'm face-timing someone.....maybe they actually aren't thinking a single thing about me because they're here for their own personal reasons." I give up on my idea about throwing a fit, and have now become a people watcher; a past-time I rather enjoy at air-ports, or any place I have to stand in line, and now a cemetery. It looks like a rather happy occasion, at least the children seem to be carefree and skipping back and forth from the car to their spot on the grass. I can hear cheerful chatter and I wonder to myself who it is they are visiting. My mind drifts to the times I visited this same spot with my mother, when I'd bring her to visit Daddy and we'd pick up his favorite candy at the store beforehand so I could take a picture of it and then eat it on the drive home; just like he'd want me to do.

It's time to head out. I want to pick up a little gift before we all meet at the restaurant. Wyatt and Megan and their two little girls will be moving to Florida. The irony of life. My parents moved to Florida when they were first married; Daddy was being stationed as a Ranger at the Everglades National Park. That's one park Dave and I have yet to visit, and now we have four more reasons to go very soon.

After our dinner and taking a few last pictures and having a few last long hugs, I made my drive back up to the cabin. I sat up late and looked at old pictures of Mama. I'm starting to see myself in her more and more the older I get, and that makes me so happy. Maybe next year I'll listen to some John Denver while I look through the pictures. She'd be so proud of me.