Reunions and departures
Eleven years ago on a snowy December night in Cleveland I was studying
for finals at Case Western Reserve University. I’d just joined a
fraternity, had recently completely bombed with a girl I wanted to
date, and I got a call from my family that my grandfather, Norb, had
just died. I didn’t really know what to do or what I could do. I was
right in the middle of finals and had a ticket home for the holidays
shortly afterward, so I made the difficult decision to not go to the
funeral. I put Astral Weeks in my walkman, put on my headphones and
boots and went out for a long walk through campus and Wade Oval. The
snow was falling too heavily to drive safely so it was especially
peaceful and in hindsight probably the perfect backdrop to be
heartbroken and to have lost a family member against.
A few years later, in 1998, I would leave Cleveland after graduating
from Case in what was to become “my” minivan and after a sad farewell
with the woman who would become my wife as I headed back to Minnesota.
On the way, I stopped in Elkader, Iowa to visit my grandmother,
Myrtle, who was still living in her house on North Main Street. Myrtle
was being attended to by a very nice caretaker named June and,
incredibly, surviving on what must be the least healthful food I had
seen in years - “chuckwagon” something-or-other. I had to go through
the awkward conversation that I knew well by this time after meeting
many old close acquaintances: “Well, I really appreciate the gesture
and hospitality [as a chronic sauce-o-phobe, this was among the top 5
most outrageous lies of my life] but I’m vegetarian now.” “Oh,
no…really?” This wouldn’t be easy for either of us. Unfortunately,
my time was short because of my itinerary over the summer. I had a job
waiting for me in Seattle, friends I hadn’t seen in years, and other
family to visit. So after an afternoon of socializing, hearing a
little of June’s demo tape (June had aspirations to sing what I think
was country music and it seemed OK to me by what I know of those
standards), and a chuckwagon-less lunch, Myrtle and I posed for a
picture and I was on my way.
The last few years and months have been harder. They sold the house on
Main Street and Myrtle moved into the Elkader Care Center. This was a
pretty obvious choice. Even as a 12-year-old I recognized that the
stairs in the house, which were always kept finely polished with NASA
surplus equipment, were designed to people to their doom. Or maybe
Norb might have left a rusty mole trap ready to spring somewhere.
Regardless, the house was not designed with modern safety standards
and was too big for one person to reasonably live in. But as far as I
know, practicality is rarely an attractive justification for moving to
a care center. And in the past few months with ulcers and internal
bleeding, everyone has understood that the inevitable day that no one
could look forward to would have to come. Today.
So this weekend many of us will get together in Elkader to say
goodbye. No one will look forward to the occassion, but at least it
will bring family together.