I’m sleeping in my grandparents’ room. I think it’s the same bed. Could be the same mattress the way it feels. My Pop-Pop essentially died in this house. By that I mean, he was probably already gone from the massive heart attack he suffered at the dining room table while Grandma was out in the cellar house getting the jar of green beans she was going to fix with his lunch. My Uncle Bob carried him out to the car and Grandma drove the 35 miles like a maniac to the State Patrol office, but the patrolman told me later he was gone long before they got there. An ambulance brought him to the hospital where I was doing my x-ray training and they pronounced him. They placed his coffin in the living room not fifteen feet from where I’m writing this. He rested there three days before the funeral, my grandma barely leaving his side…a position she had kept two months shy of fifty years.

Grandma had her last stroke in this bed. My aunt said she talked all night to Pop-Pop and my Uncle Sonny who was killed when he crashed his fighter jet in Germany when I was two. They took her to the hospital the next morning and she was gone in a few hours.

My Uncle Bob died in this bed. My aunt had heard him coughing in the night and was relieved when he finally became quiet, thinking he was getting some good sleep. My Uncle Bob was an angel unawares. Grandma had chicken pox or measles (I’m not sure which) when she was expecting him. He was born with a slight facial deformity, a very pronounced lazy eye, and a strong speech impediment. The kids made fun of him at school and Grandma would have none of that so she just kept Bob at home. He was strong as an ox and sweet as could be. He had a sense of humor and remarkable insight. He teased me unmercifully by mocking me if I cried which made me very angry as a little girl. But he taught me to play checkers and he loved I Love Lucy as much as I did. He never told a lie. He didn’t know how. If I did something wrong, all Mom had to do was look at Bob and he told her everything. Yes, as a little girl, he made me angry. But as I matured, I realized how precious he was. What a gift he was to everyone who knew him. His headstone reads “Manager of the Bell” because he rang the bell in the church steeple every Sunday of his life till he got too sick to go. My aunt has buried two husbands, her parents, a brother and a sister and she said there’s no one in the world she misses more than my Uncle Bob.

I’ve thought a lot about him the last couple of days. I’ve thought about all of them since I’ve been here. This place is thick with memories. I was so afraid I had lost my connection here. But it’s with me. It’s the cloth of my past…the memories, this house, this land. As I laid in the bed that my family has shared over the years, I felt wrapped in their love, comforted by their energy that lives on in this place. No matter where I live, this will always be home.

❤️

“Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.”

1 Thessalonians 5:13 NIV