Travels west, part II.....

I have to think where I left off. I meant to complete my recounting well before now, while it was fresher in my mind. I haven't been able to do so because I lack a web connection at home; when I am out at a cafe or at work I don't have the time to relax and compose my thoughts. It may be the moment to actually for a web connection at home.

But that is a digression. I believe I left off my story at the viewing, the first afternoon in North Dakota. A powerepoinit show of phoitographs with captions was being projected on the wall of the sanctuary. Family photographs from Gene's youth to only a month ago. I was surprised at how many had me in them, my family. More than my cousins. There, clearly, was the Gene I remember, a man who felt to me like an adult, but who really was only 20 when I began to know him. There were photos there with me I could not remember, ones taken since I left college, ones with my family when I was not there. These same photos were posted on billboards set up in the foyer of the church (although there is a better, fancier name for the foyer for churches, narthex). My favorite was one I had seen before. Gene was eighteen or nineteen and he and a friend were about to set out for a journey to Yellowstone on motorcycles. Both were astride their bikes, both wore leather jackets. It was 1969 and Gene looked cooler than he ever would after. It is that vitality of the young that I remember best.

I sat there in the pew while other relatives filtered in, hugging each other and weeping. I said hello to my aunts and cousins and siblings in turn. I stepped out for a few cigarettes to relieve the intensity. After a reasonable time my Mother and I left to go back to the hotel. We roused my father, I changed clothes (it didn't feel right to wear jeans to the wake) and we met and greeted even more relatives. We returned to the church. There were more friends and community members there now. The eldest child, Ethan, and his friends were setting up their musical equipment for performances they were to give during the wake service.

We secured seats in a pew and deposited my father there. It is always curious to bring my father out into a crowd. He is frail so that you place him in a chair and will remain there until you want to move him somewhere else. He hangs his chin and his thoughts seem to go deeply elsewhere. Yet if you rouse him to introduce people to him he seems entirely alert and cognizant. Many of these people my father has known for as long as he has known my mother. Forty years or more. That is quite a history. In some cases though, as with my cousins, I wonder if he really understands who he is hugging or if he has developed a facility for faking it. It makes things much simpler. Eventually my Uncle Roy came in with some of his closer family. He is my deceased grandfatherb's elder brother, a life-long farmer, 92. He was the only person there who surpassed my father in age and it was cute to see them together, two wizened senescent gnomes.

There was food laid out in the church prior to the wake: bread and cold cuts, deserts, weak coffee. I ate a bunch. There were really good rice krispie bar variations there. They had a base of cornflakes stirred with peanut butter and corn syrup (or something like, perhaps Karo syrup), and they were topped with chocolate frosting. As the next day would prove, midwesterners are expert at exploring the full potential of the desert bar. Finally, after more socializing and catching up we filed into our seats for the wake. The casket was left open for this service ( it was not closed until right before the funeral the next day) with the pastor standing at a dais behind it. The place was full, though not as full as it would be. There were a standard series of biblical readings, some old fashioned hymns, the type I am quite fond of ( the reason I have my own copy of the Methodist Hymnal at home). There were also those musical performances (on piano, guitar and violin) by my cousin and his friends. Those songs were modern spirituals of the evangelical gospel church sort. But also fairly nice, not strident or too infused trite popular music phrasing. They flashed the lyrics on a wall above the altar and most of the regular congregants seemed to know the words. I have one of them stuck in my head even now (blessed be the name, of the lord, blessed be his name, dah dah dah di dah and so forth). His younger brother, Christopher, read a prepared statement concerning his personal relationship to Christ. Christopher had just been confirmed in the church two days before and this statement had been prepared as part of the confirmation training. It was earnest, to say the least. It was also completely unoriginal yeat heartfelt in a way completely typical of adolescents, when each thought seems entirely your own and new-found. Yet they also contained some sharp phrasing, undoubtedly delivered directly as he had been instructed, that showed how little analysis was contained in his words. He described how he believed he was created by God for a unique and special purpose on this earth, as were we all, and not eveloved by mere chance. I was not the only who chuckled at that.

Gene's daughtewr, 8, got up then and sang. Her clear, sharp, small voice pierced the crowd. I'm pretty sure all the mothers in the crowd were weeping. The song was catchy, and also has been flitting through my mind lately, not a pleasant sensation. Her mother sat behind her to instill confidence and her older brother sang accompaniment. The pastor then read his sermon.

My Uncle and his pastor had been close friends and associates, as my uncle was an elder of the church. The sermon showed this and that was it's best feature. The sermon offered no clear insight into God's wisdom, it offered little comfort. But it did express effectively what all in the sanctuary were experiencing and that is always a valuable thing. He kept referring to my Uncle as Dr. Gene. This may have been how many people knew him, but to my cousins and I it was usettling, as it was not how we knew him. There was more singing and praying after that, and the service ended. Rain and cool weather had moved in, and the next day would bring more rain.

~A