Well, I am back from the frigid northwoods now, and wanted to catch up with you. The tidal wave of life has already swept me back out to sea and I'm starting to forget the last week.
I'm warning you now. This will be long.
I was very nervous about going north. I even caught myself straining through the dark plane window at the grid of lights that was Minneapolis from the air. For some reason, I was desperately trying to recognize anything I could. I spent my childhood just north of there. I'm from there....aren't I? The pilot said it was six degrees on the ground. My family was going to laugh at my hobo winter clothes. I patched together what I could with such short notice out of my own closet and my mom's.
The thing is, I don't really know these people. They're my family and all, but I haven't seen most of them but four times since we moved south. What if they see me as an outsider? What if - and this is worse - they see me as a Southerner? I may as well be from a different country.
Maybe what I was looking for out the window was a sense of connection. I felt like I needed to prove that I belonged there too. Maybe then I would feel entitled to the same measure of grief as those who lived there right next to Gram.
I called Dad during our layover and he told me a nasty stomach flu was ripping through the family. It started the night of the venison feed. Yup. I said venison feed. I asked if that might be the problem. Of course, it wasn't. My cousins and uncles all know how to handle their hunting trophies. Plus, only one person had gotten sick that night. It had spread to the rest. Great.
By the time we landed in tiny Wausau, it was two degrees. Brr. My stretch chinos and jean jacket were not really doing much for me at that point. I crashed in the hotel somewhere around two the next morning. I found out that my brothers both snore.
The rest of the trip felt like wading through knee-deep mud. I was really in a fog of tears, surrounded by people who had also been crying for five days straight. They're all emotional people too. Even the ones with beards. Especially the ones with beards and no head-hair. The men are too. Just kidding.
I got to help set up the church with my other girl cousins. There are only three girls, including myself. Bucklews don't make a lot of girls. I was there when they brought Grandma in. It took my breath away to see her lying there and looking like she would jump right up and say, "Well, hi Chris!" like she always did. But she didn't.
I rushed back to the hotel to get dressed. I had grabbed my most appropriate funeral attire - a black velvet dress and pearls - without remembering the culture in Woodruff. I had to stop at Wal-Mart for pantyhose and closed-toed shoes because I was freezing. The clerk thought I was a teacher. I don't know why - maybe it was the lipstick or the jacket with a fur collar. Nobody else was wearing anything like those items. Or a velvet dress, really. As a matter of fact, one guy at the funeral was wearing fleece camouflage overalls. He had just come in from ice fishing and still had fish parts on his clothes. That's okay there, though.
It's a strange thing to walk into a church full of people and see your genetic makeup smeared around the room on other peoples' bodies. They all grew up with each other, and maybe they're used to it, but it was surprising to me. They got my jokes, too. Maybe a sense of humor is genetic. Or maybe it's just because I get mine from my dad and he got it from them.
At any rate, the service was nice. A little reserved for my taste, but my dad spiced it up by taking up the open microphone offered by the pastor. Nobody held it together after that. I'm really proud of him for standing up and speaking what was on his heart and remembering his mom in a way that few of us could have articulated. He talked about the big picture. I'll leave it at that.
Then we said goodbye, and ate ham sandwiches and three-bean salad in the church basement, all underneath the concerned eyes of the ladies' guild or whatever the Methodists call it. They were so sweet.
I made my youngest brother drive me around so I could take pictures of places I remembered. The picture above is of grandparents' house. They sold it probably ten or fifteen years ago, but my dad grew up there, and I have so many memories there. That house, to me, is home.
I'll save the stories of my return-trip adventure for tomorrow or something. It seems disrespectful to add that to this post, and you'll see why. But, as we walked back into the tiny airport, I turned around, looked at the snow, and felt like I was closing the door and leaving my home. My cousin Amy remarked about how little Joe (the youngest brother) probably remembered about the area, since he was only five when we left. But she looked at me proudly and said, "but it's still in your blood a little bit." I think she's right.
<3 Christy
