Allison Keeton Fisher

It’s a small town, the center of which is situated just about three miles south of Interstate 64 in eastern Kentucky. The connecting road between the town and the Interstate is a four-lane highway dotted with businesses and homes built on and into the hills that border the road. Close to the Interstate, nestled on a hill at the edge of the forest, is a funeral home that transports the deceased through town and all over the countryside to small family cemeteries.

On a recent trip home, my mother and I were driving north on this connecting highway toward the Interstate, when I noticed that all the cars in front of me were pulling off to the side of the road and stopping. I slowed down, too, simply because I didn’t know what was going on. Then, around the bend, I saw what was happening. There was a hearse leading a long line of cars toward town. I pulled over, like everyone else, and noticed that everything around us had come to a halt as well. In a parking lot across the road, some high school kids were raising money at a car wash. They stopped their laughing and sloshing around and stood still, some with hands folded in front, some with their heads down.

The whole scene brought back a memory I have of being downtown with my mamaw as a child, walking up the sidewalk with her and seeing a funeral go by. We stopped, as was customary, and I asked why. She shushed me until all the cars had gone by and then told me, “It’s just something you do when someone dies.” In my hometown, it still is, plain and simple. As my mother and I watched this procession go by, I was immediately taken back to my own mamaw’s funeral.

My grandmother was my first close relative to die. My other grandparents had passed on when I was a young child, and I can’t really remember anything about their funerals. I was thirty when mamaw died and consider myself blessed to have made it that far into my adult life without losing anyone intimately close to me. I had long since left Morehead, gotten married, and Rachel was nine months old at the time. It had been years since I attended a funeral, so I had forgotten the small town rituals surrounding it. I had gotten used to the muttering and sighing and eye rolling that usually accompanies a funeral in a big town, because of the traffic jam it causes and how it makes everyone late for whatever they are in such a hurry to get to.

After mamaw’s service, we all climbed into our vehicles for the long trek to our small family cemetery about fifteen miles away. As we pulled out onto the highway, I began to see reactions that triggered my memory, and it moved me in a way that took me by surprise. As I stared out the window of our assigned car, I witnessed the same scene, back then, as I did now with my mother. Everything came to a complete halt. Cars on the road pulled over. Pedestrians stopped walking. Even the university students with backpacks thrown over their shoulders walking quickly down Main Street to get to their classes stopped. Small clusters of people gathered on the sidewalk, chatting about one thing or another stopped talking. Children were shushed just like I had been years before by the woman we were now trailing behind. Everything just stopped as we went through town, and even as we wound our way out of town onto the small, winding, two-lane road, the farmers in the fields turned off their machines and took off their hats. It was an emotional time for me. Most of the people we passed would not have been able to tell you the name of the person we’d just lost or anything about her. If there was someone who knew her, there was a pretty good chance they were in the convoy with us to begin with.

In a small town, it’s not knowing the deceased, personally, that compels you to stop and give a moment of silence and stillness. It’s the way you are raised. It’s recognizing and respecting the fact that another human being who shared your community with you is now gone. It’s a way of quietly showing support for the family who is suffering, whether you know them or not. It’s a way of honoring the gift of life that is, without a doubt, taken from all of us one day. It’s a way of saying, “One of us is gone.”

My mamaw was a housewife who was rich only in family and personal experience. She grew up during the depression and didn’t trust banks. Every penny she owned was either in the sole of her shoe, various drawers around the house, jars and panels throughout the house, between mattresses or pinned to the inside of her bra, just for emergencies, mind you. If it wasn’t cash and wasn’t where you could get to it quickly, then there was no use for it. There was a time, as a young mother, when she had to leave her children with her mother to take a job out of state, because it was the only job to be found, and they all needed the money so badly. In an age before phones were in every home and mail to rural areas took ages to get through, I wondered how hard that must have been for her, to be that far away from her babies with very limited communication.

My mother told me that in her younger, stronger days, mamaw could take a full hog, skin it, gut it, and cut it up so that nearly every part could be used in some sort of recipe. She washed clothes by hand, fed each piece through the wringer, and hung the clothes on a line to dry. Her tiny frame gave birth to an eleven pound son with no drugs to alleviate the pain, and she delivered my eldest sister after chasing the doctor away when he showed up to my mother’s house with alcohol on his breath. She was my babysitter growing up, while my own mother went off to work.

I remember her small, cramped kitchen filled to capacity with every kind of ingredient known to mankind, stocked on top of her refrigerator, taking up half the kitchen table and nearly every inch of counter space. When I was young, I personally saw her hold a chicken by the neck and with one swift crank of her arm, snap the neck, decapitate it, fling the head over the fence, direct her son-in-law to bring it in once it collapsed from blood loss (and once his own shock and nausea subsided), so she could boil and pluck it and fix it for dinner that night.

She was a small but mighty force and lived a life I can barely imagine. She never held a title or political office. She never led any committees or served on any boards. She was well known only to those who benefited from her never-ending generosity and amazing common sense. She fed strangers when called upon and sprang into action in the middle of the night if anyone needed anything. She had coffee ready from sunrise to sunset just in case someone dropped by. She didn’t go to high school, but her memory of people and events and the Bible was long, and she drew on that to determine her beliefs and any course of action that needed to be taken.

There are other areas of her life of which I’ve only recently become aware. With every story, she becomes more three-dimensional than I ever would have figured growing up. She was a great woman to us, to the ones who knew her so well. So on the way to the cemetery, it struck me that a whole town had just come to a complete standstill for my mamaw in much the same way that it would have for the mayor, a military hero, or any other well-known person in our town. In a small town, everyone is important, at least once, at least at the end.

My mamaw’s family cemetery is not easily reached. In fact, it used to be a downright nightmare. It sits on top of a hill near the county line. The single lane, gravel road that leads up to the cemetery is a tight, thirty degree right turn off the main road. Most vehicles need to swing wide into the oncoming lane to even make the turn. The grade is steep – too steep for some cars in years past. The distance from bottom to top is probably less than one hundred yards, but it’s a hard one hundred yards. Even in good weather, some mourners chose to park at the bottom and walk up through the tall grass that covered the side of the hill. In rain or snow, only the hearse and those with four wheel drives attempted the climb. Others would walk in the deep tire tracks dug into the gravel after they were sure all the cars reached the top. It was surreal, that long train of people walking up, mostly in single file, not talking, heads bowed, the stronger healthier ones helping the oldest and youngest in the line.

Obviously, it’s a small, secluded place, unlike the massive, sprawling memorial gardens that have become so popular in the last few years. It’s also one of the most beautiful places I know. Because it’s so high, you can see rolling hills that lap over one another until they disappear in a haze. For years, there were beautiful, thick, tall trees that created a columned border, encircling the site like a crescent moon. Those trees were so tall, they were probably old even when the first person was buried there two centuries ago. Storms and disease took their toll, though, and forced the removal of most of them. The cemetery is still an awe-inspiring place, however. The families themselves are the caretakers of the cemetery. Twice a year, usually in the spring before Memorial Day and in the fall before winter sets in, family members gather with their lawnmowers, weed eaters, fresh flowers, and special stones to keep it looking respectable. It truly is a labor of love. The caretaking of a loved ones doesn’t end when they die. Not here, anyway.

I try to visit the cemetery every time I visit Kentucky. There’s just something about the place that I love. It might be the fact that I vaguely recognize so many names from family stories. My mamaw is buried next to her brother, who died as a very young man in the early 1940s from complications during surgery. He was her closest sibling, and she loved him dearly; that much I remember well. My mamaw outlived two husbands who are buried in nicely kept and easily accessible cemeteries in town, but I don’t think there was ever any doubt where she would be buried in the end. She wanted to be with “her people.”

Her mother and father are buried right above her. Set into the monument at the top, there is a ceramic oval that has a black and white picture of the two of them, my great-grandparents. Their faces are worn and creased, and their clothes didn’t fare much better, but I can see the resemblances of these strangers to my grandmother and my mother and maybe even myself, sometimes. It’s not a picture of a well-groomed couple posing for a portrait. It’s a casual picture. They are wearing everyday clothes, and they look natural. I love it.

Mamaw’s sister and brother-in-law are buried a few yards away on the other side of the site. There are several small, plain, diamond and rectangular stones with names of children sprinkled throughout the cemetery. Some stones go back to the late 1700s. I examine the dates of births and deaths, figure the ages, and wonder how these people, these relatives of mine, may have died. Did the children die of illness or accident? Did the young women die in childbirth; the young men in war? My mother can explain some, but others go back much too far.

On one particular visit, it dawned on me that I’m connected, on a genetic level, to nearly every person in that cemetery. My DNA is tied to most of those people whom I will never know, and it makes me wish I listened more closely to my family’s history as my mamaw talked about her parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins. Why didn’t I take notes and record these things, somehow? Maybe it’s because the stories came spontaneously and in short bursts. They were plopped down into ordinary, daily situations, and were dismissed just as quickly; something my brother did reminded her of her own brother, or something on TV would remind her of her childhood home. Maybe, because as a child, you think nothing will ever change. Everyone you know will always be there, and there will always be time to get the details, later.

Every person in our family cemetery has a story, and for no other reason than just plain ol’ curiosity, I want to know those stories. Who was the black sheep of the family; who was the pride and joy? Who was happy with their lives, and who secretly wished for something much too far from their reality? Who was the hothead, always causing trouble, and who was the constant, dependable one? Who were the parents that grieved for all these children; who recovered, and who didn’t? These are my ancestors, and I can’t help but think that, even though they lived fifty, one hundred, and almost two hundred years ago, there are similarities between some of them and me. At this point, it’s a mystery, and I do love a good story.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had to do those pesky adult-oriented tasks, such as make a will, buy life insurance, assign guardians of my children in case, well, just in case. I’ve also thought about where I would like to be buried, not that I’m in any hurry mind you. It just doesn’t seem to paralyze me with fear the way it seems to do with some people. It’s a transition, just like birth, and THAT worked out okay. Despite what modern medicine would like us to believe, none of us will live this life forever.

Mom says the hill is nearly filled to capacity. She just can’t see where the rest of us are going to fit. We’re a big bunch, these descendents of Fowler and Winona. Some of the newest members of the cemetery are starting to take their spot down the slope on the side of the hill, just off the plateau at the top. When I mentioned to Mom that I wanted to be buried there, she said there may not be room by the time I’m “called home,” but I figure even if I have to be cremated and scattered over the hilltop, that’s where I’ll be. My ashes will settle over the prettiest little ridge you can imagine, and a little stone off to the side in the corner will have my name, date of birth and death, and a ceramic oval with random pictures of me in it, nothing fancy, the “kiddie table,” as it were. Oh, there’ll be room somehow. I’m sure of it, especially if mamaw has anything to do with it. After all, in mamaw’s house, family is always welcome, and there’s always room for one more.

Dr. Jenijoy La Belle

In the early 1950s, my mother was on a quiz show. It must have been a radio show, for I vaguely recall listening at home with my brother and sister. We couldn’t have seen it on TV, because we didn’t have one.

As the program neared its end, there were only two contestants left, a man and my mother. She was asked to name the three peaks of Mt. Rainier. Since we lived in Washington state, this was not a difficult question for her. “Liberty Cap, Point Success, and Columbia Crest,” she quickly answered.

The man was then asked, “Who said, ‘I think, therefore I am’?” He couldn’t remember.

“Descartes,” said my mother.

She won the top award, a diamond ring. He won a freezer. As soon as the show was over, they traded prizes. He had just become engaged and had no ring. We had only a small icebox and had to keep our meat in a frozen food locker downtown. Everyone went home happy.

My mother is now 81. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She no longer knows who said, “I think, therefore I am,” and I’m no longer certain about the great Cartesian proposition. The terrible illness has taken much from my mother, but not her identity. Rather, it has clarified her. She has mastered the art of losing. The affliction has made her even more herself. Always gentle, generous, and full of hope, she now is the very essence of these qualities. My mother has taught me that Descartes was wrong: thinking and being are not one.

My parents live in the woods outside Olympia, Washington. When we stand on the high deck of their house and look west or south, we see the forest. But if we turn east and look down a long tree-lined ravine, there is Mt. Rainier against the sky. Immense. Perfect. Unchanging and ever-changing. Black in the gray light. Scarlet at sunset. White in the blue air. Some mornings, my parents rise early to watch the sun blaze behind it. Dazzled, they go back to bed.

I go home as often as I can. My mother and I sit in wooden chairs on the deck and feast our eyes on what Washingtonians call simply “The Mountain.” The conversation invariably takes the same turn. “Isn’t it grand!” my mother exclaims, leaning forward. “Yes,” I say, “but I wish I could recollect the names of the peaks.” I hold my breath for an awful instant. “Liberty Cap, Point Success, and Columbia Crest,” she responds in a rush of words.

“Mama,” I tell her, “That’s what you should have named your three kids.”

She laughs. My mother knows she forgets our names and those of her grandchildren. She frets when she can’t recall the titles of the poems she taught in high school for so many years. It hurts her to have forgotten all the students she tirelessly helped climb up the lower slopes of Parnassus. Yet, she triumphantly remembers the mountain peaks.

The last time I was home, it was impossible to see Rainier. A gloom of clouds each morning, followed by too much of the rain that I used to think gave the mountain its name, but I knew it was there, and even when my mother’s thoughts are foggy and beclouded, she’s there, too. Like the ancient volcano, she may seem inactive, but she’s far from extinct.

I hope Rainier continues to doze; the state hasn’t yet recovered fully from the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. I dream, however, that some cure will be found for Alzheimer’s, that one day our friends and relatives afflicted with this dementing disorder will awake and burst once more into intensity, shooting plumes of forgotten names into the air, releasing an avalanche of memories, covering the earth with lost recollections. But even if this vision never comes true, my mother is still here, the person she has always been, the human self I love, like the mountain in its serene presence.

Karen O’Leary

The phrase was invented to thwart Mother Wrath and reduce any hard working mother to putty in her kids’ hands. And, it is guaranteed to send shivers down the spine of even the most seasoned Veteran Mom.

Picture this scene. I’m dedicating my already sore fingers to a mound of fresh vegetables, trying to prepare a truly nutritious and wholesome meal for my family of four. A loud crash echoes from our basement. My heart hammers in my chest as I brake for the stairs, my mind rolling through a list of possible casualties. My foot slips on the carpet, but I manage to right myself before breaking my neck.

My girls stand side by side near the fireplace, ready for battle. My eldest’s quivering voice pleads, “I’m sorry Mom, but we couldn’t help it.” It’s all part of the act.

I stare in mild shock as my new brass and glass candleholder lay in shattered on the bricks and surrounding carpet. My youngest has the offending basketball tucked under her arm as she claims, “It was an accident.”

“But you know you’re not supposed to play with balls in the family room,” I explain, trying to fend off their defense. My anger boils just below the surface.

They look up at me with repentant eyes. “We’re really sorry Mom,” my oldest appeals, tipping her head to one side. It was a masterful move sure to melt even the most hardened heart.

“We’ll buy you a new one,” her sister adds with the precision of a skilled lawyer. There was no way a few coins will cover the cost. I can’t afford to replace it.

Disappointment replaces my anger as I stoop down and pick up a piece of the crackled-finish glass. “I’ll help you Mommy.” My older daughter rests her small hand on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, my youngest carries the offending ball into the next room, returning with the wastebasket. She holds up the brass base of my broken treasure. “This is still good.”

I gently run my fingers over the shiny metal before sliding it into the trash. “It’s not any good without the other part,” my voice explains barely above a whisper.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot my eldest picking up a piece of glass. I suck in a breath, trying to calm my fears. In one smooth swoop, I grab her wrist, slipping potential harm from her tiny fingers.

I banish the two with the rigorous sentence of sitting quietly on the couch to watch television until supper. Their smiles tell me the defense has won another case. No matter, they’re quiet, giving me a chance to clean up and regain my equilibrium after swimming through a sea of emotions.

As I’ve heard the words, “I’m sorry Mom, but I couldn’t help it,” repeated over the years, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t God’s way of helping a tired mother control her anger. For that, I am grateful. But, I’d feel truly blessed if I never had to hear these words again.

David Martin

When I write at a computer, I often hear instrumental music with a piano leading the melody. I never notice words or lyrics. As I place my fingers on the keyboard, I sense a concert hall and a quiet audience, waiting. I hear a symphony in the background, and I see Ludwig van Beethoven in my mind.

Why music? Why the piano? Why Beethoven? More importantly, why at the computer? After years of wondering, the answer became clear to me one night, as I tied sentences together and coasted into the 3 a.m. darkness.

When I was young, my mother and I argued weekly about how much time I should practice the piano. There was a nice Baldwin in the house, and she wanted me to play it.

One day, I heard Mother talking to her friends about classical music. The name “Beethoven” came up in their conversation, and I paid attention every time his name was mentioned. “He was the best German composer,” she said.

At first, I was curious if I could make my fingers please Mom, and I was serious with my lessons for awhile. I practiced, diligently, so I could perform at a planned student recital a few months away. Would she think I was a little Beethoven? The stage fright I experienced at that small gathering killed my interest in playing. I knew Beethoven was beyond my reach.

However, the biggest competition for my piano playing time was baseball. I wanted to play centerfield for the New York Yankees when I grew up. Mickey Mantle, I imagined, was my big brother. I was the oldest child in my family, and I needed a brother to look up to, so I picked him. Fast, strong, able to hit on both sides of the plate, and unstoppable chasing fly balls that would be hits against other outfielders in Major League Baseball, he was my hero.

I loved the grass in “my office.” It smelled good. I thrived on the isolation in the outfield and knew it was my job to manage the players on either side of me. I dared batters on the other team to get a ball past me. That did not happen often.

The respect I got from the coach and the rest of the team motivated me to concentrate on the ball coming out of the pitcher’s hand on each throw, so I could get a jump on the batter’s swing, as he made contact. I had to cover more ground than any other player. I wanted to be the best I could be, and I felt excited when I caught a line-drive on the run, grabbed a pop fly out of the sun, and threw a frozen rope from deep center field to home plate before the opponent on third could score.

My fingers were meant to throw baseballs, not find middle “C” on the piano. I liked the feel of my hand around the leather ball. I felt the gift of strength in my arm, and if I kept practicing, I would receive more praise from my coach and teammates.

Every Saturday at 10 a.m., God bless her, Mother would make sure I was seated on the piano bench doing my scales to warm up before practicing the new piece my instructor assigned for the next session. Weekly, this routine took place. My desire to improve was not as great as hers. While she dreamed of “Moonlight Sonata,” I dreamed of the Chicago White Sox visiting Yankee Stadium.

In the spring, one Saturday morning, my life changed. As I sat on the piano bench absorbed in a new piece of sheet music, three of my closest friends knocked loudly on the front porch door, only a few feet away from me, as I was lost thought.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I nearly fell off the piano bench in fright.

One of the boys yelled, “Hey, Dave, we’re going to the baseball field, and we need you to practice some plays. We want to win that first game of the season. Come on.”

Quickly, Mother said, “Tell them you can play in about an hour, after you finish your piano practice.”

“But, Mom, they need me now,” I replied.

“Your promise to me comes first,” she whispered.

The boys on the porch were all older friends from the neighborhood. They played infield positions, because they did not like the outfield. They thought playing there was boring and too much work. They felt better on the dirt, and they needed me to back them up in the outfield.

I was not going to win this contest. Either my friends or Mom would not like my decision. I could always do piano practice later, like my friends said. They would not wait forever. I knew I would be grown up soon, and the Yankees would call me.

Mom’s hands slowly folded across her chest. Her eyes filled with tears.

Beethoven or baseball? I knew that I loved centerfield more than the piano, so I made my move. Fifty years later, I still feel my legs slowly sliding off the piano bench and moving toward the front door.

“Mom, I’ll be back after baseball practice,” I reassured her, but I did not hear her say anything.

As I reached for my leather glove, she reached for the music pages.

When I stepped through the door onto the porch, the oldest boy put his arm around my shoulders and said, “We need you, buddy,” and the other boys agreed.

As I started down one of the many roads I took to reach manhood, I imagined my piano music being torn in half.

Today, in my mind, I sense a bust of Beethoven behind me when I type, and I always write with his music in the background. His powerful notes calm me and let me find inner paths to explore with words. I have no fear of him, anymore, so I write on.

I find time each day to type a little “music,” and sometimes, I talk to him. The music of reflection is a solitary tune. I roll through the storm clouds of life listening to “da-da-da-dum,” as I hear notes coming from the keyboard. The letters that make my words become piano keys, and I don’t look over my shoulders anymore.

Composing my “music” on paper shows me I learned to listen, while playing the piano and running in the sun. I learned the most in both activities when I did not talk, because there is power and strength in finding silent spaces during the day.

The secret of composition is to not think of the ending and what comes before the last page. The best plan is to write one sentence at a time and measure the steps, thoughts, and days in key strokes.

Today, when I watch a ball game, I recall all the fun, challenges, and respect I received at such an early age playing with my friends. Those days defined who I would become many years later. I liked sports, and I could not get my fill. I would love to return to those games and play them one more time.

I raise my hands above the keyboard, once more, and hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with those famous four notes. I am still practicing, Mom. This time I hope to make music, as I struggle to form complete sentences and developed paragraphs. I listen to Beethoven’s notes, but I write my own internal rhythms and play my own tunes.