Reunion Raw

Driving north from the coast to the piney woods of Mississippi to a family reunion, my eyes tear.  I blink it away, thinking that going here is a homecoming of sorts.  Bittersweet.  I’m crying now as I write—part for the empty spot my grandfather, my Slick, should fill in this gathering, part for the idyllic childhood that’s downright enviable.  

He died two years ago this May—the most loving, annoying, persistent, present man I knew.  Self-destructive, loving, dedicated.  Such a big personality and part of my life that it still doesn’t feel quite real that he’s gone.  I still walk in to their house and have to stop myself from looking for him down the hall.  Will is his namesake.  He had to be special to pass along a name like Denson.  In the ICU, I whispered to him not to die, because then if the baby was a boy, we’d have to pass a name.  I also whispered to him that we were having a homebirth, because the eternally mischevious little brother part of Slick love being the bearer of a big secret.  A nurse tiptoed up behind me, put her hand on my elbow as I cried into my clasped hands, and asked me if I felt faint.  Please.  Nobody from this tough old guy’s line is that weak.  He is so tall he hardly fits on the hospital bed.  He shouldn’t be alive right now.  He looks almost like a pharaoh only his head is crowned with bandages.

Crossing the Bouie River, that cold spring fed river whose water is cold and sweet like sap that runs through cracks in the earth, all I can think about is riding 4-wheelers though cow pastures to the little ravine.  On foot, walking across another little creek to the river.  Sand.  The water is cold, clear.  There is a wall of root-cracked earth rising on the opposite bank.  I always wonder what’s up there.  For years, in yoga meditations, this is my “place.”  The bank is part sand, part gravel.  Shooting a snake coiled on the branch.  Part of why he’d take me to the country was to shoot pistols.  The bigger, the better.  He always laughed and said it was scary what a good shot I was, especially for a little city girl.  I haven’t been there in well over ten years.

My children squabble in the back seat, restless and ready to be out of the car.  Once we’re there and meet my parents, we sit.  Looking around, I see a few familiar faces.  It isn’t the same.  Growing up, we were always at my great grandmother’s house sweating under the massive oak in the front yard, rocking in the porch swing, occasionally lolling in the relief of the two window units inside.  It was always the kids and the old people vying for the ac.  The bathroom smelled like Dial soap and had a hook and eye door latch.

Saw horse and plywood tables line one side of the horseshoe shaped drive, filled with food.  Uncle Ermon’s farm truck is at one end filled with coolers and repurposed milk jugs filled with tea.  The pack of kids, me included, got in trouble for things like jumping on hay bales, scaring the cows, and driving 4-wheelers through the rye grass, not to mention spraying cow patties on the kid naïve enough to ride on the back.   

I remember Slick saying when his oldest brother died, “This is the beginning of the end of my generation.”  I had no idea.  Today, Joe is the last of the 5.  He stands at the podium and calls the names of those who’ve died this year, faltering a bit at Herschel, his cousin, and his last living brother, Ermon.  I’m crying.  Thank God the blessing is next.  I blot my eyes and try not to snort, feeling ridiculous and maybe hormonal.  Nobody else even notices.  

That’s not it, though.  This place is nice, but it’s not the place.  I feel so deeply rooted to the place of my childhood memories, and this is not it.  My children run and explore the little creek and bridges outside, flushed and sweaty in the June heat.  It’s cute, even pretty, but not the same.  That place was so plain, so every day.  Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary.  Where will my kids be able to go like that?  Able to go back in the woods and just be?  Get covered in mud and wash it off in the creek?  Nobody worried about us being gone.

I don’t think the place would feel right without the people, though.  Maybe it would change if the reunion had stayed there, grown into something new.  None of my cousins I grew up with are there.  I know we’re all busy and not all close enough.  Most of them came when Slick died, though.

On the way home, I realize that what I’ve been feeling is raw.  Raw is better that surprised.  Raw is open, not judgmental—remembering what it was and seeing what it is.  It surprises me.  This gathering was always fun, exhausting, over-filling as a child.  The rawness is equal parts loss, acceptance, and moving forward.