XX. The Detour

The last morning at mom’s is much like every other morning at mom’s…until it’s time to say goodbye.

As you have figured out, I thrive in routine. At mom’s I would awaken around 4:30, convert my guest room back into her living room, leave and go get my coffee and breakfast. There is small gas station with a deli just across town. Across town is five blocks. My first morning there I drove as I needed to fuel up for mom and I’s trip to Janalee’s. As I am walking from my truck to the store, a car comes up behind me and woman’s voice asks, “hey, are you from Texas?”. As a natural reflex, as I turned I said, “Why yes Mam, I am” in my most respectful central Texas draw. After-all, I was in Nebraska representing the great state of Texas. “Manners maketh the man”. It was my sister, Laura, on her way to work. We had not seen each other yet as I had arrived the evening before. It was unexpected treat and a great way to start my visit

The last morning I chose to walk and take in the charm this little village exudes one more time. When I walked up to the deli counter Dolly already recognized me from the preceding mornings. “You want your usual, Hon?” I love these type of interactions with easy going people in small towns. I got my coffee and breakfast and ate about a block away in a small park on the edge of the fairground’s.

I then took a stroll around town as I would be sitting in my truck for a good 9 hours or more that day. As I was walking by Laura’s house, which is about 3 blocks from mom’s, my phone rang. My sister Laura knew I was leaving this morning as we had our dinner date the night before. On her way to work she had picked up coffee for mom and I at a little coffee shop, Black Sheep Coffee, on the other edge of town. I met her back at mom’s. It was good fortune as I had forgotten to give her the little memento I had picked up for her and my sister Deb. It was a sheet of commemorative stamps.

I packed my truck, showered and shaved and waited for mom to get up. We had our coffee…and then it was time to go… It was hard, but oddly not as hard as years past. Goodbyes had always seemed so permanent. I know I feel this way due to the number of times goodbye did turnout to be permanent and how painful that was. Goodbye had always felt like ‘loss’. Something about what I had been going thru the last few years had changed this experience. I wasn’t as focused on the visit ending as I was on the adventure continuing. Not just this next leg of the trip, but future visits to mom’s.

I had made a detour on my way back to Texas last year as well to visit a small Kansas town we had lived in. It was difficult and freeing. More about that later. This year I was going back to my grandparents (Harley’s parents) hometown that I had not been back to since 1979, when we buried our grandfather. We had buried our grandmother two years prior. This is where my brother David and I were sent to live when our mother abandoned us. I was 17 months old and David was 4 months old. A motel manager in Georgia called the police to report two infants found in one of the rooms. They traced us back to Harley, who was no longer with our mother, Faye. His name was on our birth certificates, but her’s was not. The military put the pieces together. The woman who had checked into the motel was not the woman on our Birth certificates. Harley had to confess the fraud they had perpetuated. He was ordered to deliver us to his parents in Kansas and then surrender himself to the military police where he was sentenced to time at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. He would live and work there until he had paid back the cost of the two births. Our mother disappeared.

So we lived with our grandparents on their dirt farm in Kansas. It sat just on the edge of town. This was the same farm Harley (the youngest) and his siblings grew up on. No running water in the house, we used an outhouse and had limited electricity. Eventually they would be forced leave the farm and move to town when my grandfather lost his leg in a farm machinery accident…did grandma’s foot slip off the brake or did she lift it…he was mean so who knows. I don’t really remember much about those early days other than being walked to the outhouse as I got older…it terrified me. I was always afraid I would slip thru that hole that from my perspective, was a bottomless pit from which nothing returned…LOL

I do however remember spending almost every summer with them until I was 14 even after Harley remarried and we returned to ‘mom’. My brother David and I, and eventually Eddie, would go several weeks after school let out and would not return until right before school was back in session. Everyone knew everyone in these little towns. Up at dawn for a full grandma breakfast. We spent our days riding horses at a childhood friend of Harley’s, Vernon’s. He and his son did team roping and his daughter did barrel racing. They lived on the corner of town where our grandparents farm had been and had a small arena. Back to Grandma’s kitchen for lunch…tomato sandwiches, homemade bread and homegrown tomatoes. There was a drug store with a soda fountain and pinball machines. One of our cousins worked the counter so root-beer floats were plentiful. There was a Barber and a dry goods store. Grandma cooked at the local cafe. When she worked in the evening we went there for dinner. Grandpa would drop us off and then we would walk her home..up the hill and under the water tower…sugar cookies and milk before bed. Church on Sunday, fried chicken for Sunday lunch. County fairs and trips to see relatives. Golden memories.

I had seen this scene so many times in my life. It had been 40 years but it felt the same..just up the way and around the corner was their little 500 square foot cottage. Grandma was in the kitchen or sitting at her treadle sewing machine. Grandpa was listening to a baseball game on the radio. They never owned a TV. Let that sink in for a moment. We spent entire summers never even seeing a TV into the late 70’s…and we never missed it. In the evenings we played dominoes or kick the can with other neighborhood kids. We went to bed at 9:00 because we were exhausted and knew we would be up before the sun to do it all over again the next day.

I knew the house was no longer there from Google Earth, a garage, bigger than the house, had replaced it decades ago. As I drove thru town I realized just how much was not there any longer. Houses had been torn down or just fell down. Tornado’s and storms had taken many of the trees. The only businesses still open were the local grocery store, Grain elevator, Post Office and bank. I drove out to the old farmstead with the intention of walking the quarter of a mile into it where the old farm house use to stand. It had been gone for many years but I wanted to stand there for a moment or two…just remembering. But when I pulled up there was activity on the property that Google earth had not caught since capturing the image years ago. I decided not to cross the fence as it appeared someone was living in a trailer on the corner of the property. I’m from the country. Trespasser might be shot on-sight…LOL I did however spend some time and took a few photos from a distance. This is where the farmstead stood.

I drove back into town to stop by the grocery store on my way out. I was pleased to find that the cafe was now incorporated into the grocery store. By the smell, I could tell, home-cooking….I’ll have the special…meatloaf, mashed potatoes, carrots and a fresh made roll. As I waited for my meal I stood next to a community table with 3 older gentlemen setting at it. Older as in my age..lol. One acknowledged me and I asked if any of them had lived here their entire lives. Two men pointed to the 3rd. I introduced myself and gave a brief explanation as to why I had come thru town.

“There use to be a lot of Arthurs around here” he noted and invited me to sit down when my food came and we visited about the 40 years that had passed and what I remembered about the town. As I was finishing my meal he inquired, “Now just where did your grandparents live?”. I explained the small house and then that they had lived on the farm on the edge of town.

“You know where Vernon’s place is? Its was just off the corner of that” I explained that I had gone there first but did not enter due to it appearing someone lived there now. He looked at me and chuckled. ” I bought that place 30 years ago. You are more than welcome to walk out onto the land. I covered the foundation to the house about 20 years ago but left your grandma’s rock garden”

That is what small towns are like. I shook his hand as we said goodbye and thanked him for the information and invitation. While I paid my bill at the counter, I paid his as well, writing on the back of his ticket, ‘Thank you and God Bless’. When he got ready to leave, I wanted him to know what our interaction had meant to me. I drove back out to the farm and walked onto the land. I stood where my grandma’s kitchen had stood. I felt the breeze..a gentle embrace of my grandma…the sweet smell of weeds and prairie grass. I lay down gazing up at the clouds as I had as a child…50 years ago seemed like only a moment away. I could hear grandma calling…in my minds eye I saw my brother David and running to keep up just behind him, my brother Eddie. Nothing that has ever happened between us in our adults lives can take that away from me. It is mine and I cherish it still.

I revisit those golden memories often and plan to again here as well but I had an agenda and many miles to drive that day and needed to get on with it. I drove back thru town, out onto the highway and towards the cemetery where loved ones had been laid to rest. It was my grandparents, my uncle Wayne and his son, Michael’s memories that drew me there.

This small graveyard sits on the open prairies of Kansas just outside of town. Its beautiful and comforting. It was much like visiting my father and brothers graves earlier in the summer. Their remains were there, but they were not here. I had been carrying them in my heart for 40 years..and would continue to do so. I knew exactly where they lay…and I thought I knew where Harley was…his ashes entombed just behind their headstone. As I sat there my eye drifted to the left… to the grave next to my grandparents… to Harley’s headstone…

I don’t know if I forgot or maybe never knew that my sister, his youngest daughter, had arranged for him to have a headstone. The synchronicity of the universe suddenly made it self known. Everything happens for a reason, when it is supposed to happen. My first jolt was seeing my name among his children even though it had been established almost 20 years prior to his death that I was not his biological son. I had number of reactions, my first was to go to my truck, retrieve a couple of tools and chisel my name off.

But then grace descended upon me…for better or worse, for the first two decades of my life he was my “dad” and although my devil incarnate, also my greatest teacher. He gave me a reason to grow. He was the opportunity and catalyst to understand and exhibit unconditional love expressed thru forgiveness. As I stared at it, I realized that is why I had come. To be reminded of who I had become and what I had done..exactly 19 years ago to the day. It was the dates on his headstone that brought it all into focus.

I was standing there, on August 8th 2019, when I took this photo. On August 8th 2000 I received the call from my sister, Deb. Harley was completely estranged from the family by this time. He had never taken his health seriously, smoked several packs of Camel no filters a day and had been told recently that he needed to be on Dialysis as his kidneys were failing. He chose not to pursue any medical intervention. He was a cross county truck driver and they are not sure how long he lay there on the loading dock before someone found him. His kidneys had failed and he had suffered a major heart attack. He was in a comma, brain dead and never expected to regain consciousness. Life-support was the only thing keeping him alive. Deb, Ed, and Laura where already driving from Omaha to Modesto California.

I had always imagined my reaction to this news regarding him to be sweet revenge, something to be celebrated…I just started crying…I was so confused. I didn’t know what to do. My husband did. By the time I left work and got back home later in the morning. He had already bought me a ticket to fly out to California that day. He understood why I was reacting the way I did…it was because of who I had become, who he had fallen in love with just a few months prior…and this is why I had fallen in love with him…his Heart!

I had much experience with dying and death having lived thru the 80’s and 90’s, the AIDS epidemic, holding their hand as they took their last breath and knowing that last breath was a blessing to so many that had suffered so long. My siblings had not and this was all very overwhelming for them. Two family members needed to sign the papers to have him removed from life support. They could not bring themselves to do so. It was understandable.

The last thing I ever said to Harley, many years before, was a curse. “Your children will all grow up and shun you. You will die alone”

I was now there to assure this did not happen.

He had always made it clear that he never wanted to be kept alive if he was in a comma. To have left him in that state would have been vengeful on my part. I was now determined to not let that happen. We went back to the hospital the next morning, August 9th. I knew the system and how it worked. I had another brain activity test done and found two doctors who concurred that he was brain-dead to sign off on it. Then it only required one of his children, me, to sign the release order.

My sister, Deb, and I sat with him, each holding a hand, the oldest and the youngest. I spoke to him about forgiveness…and then my epiphany ; No one had to die in order for me to forgive them. I knew, as he took his last breath, that I would be extending my forgiveness, without condition, from then on.

That being said, the horror and the damage done over all those years of torment and abuse had taken and would continue to take sometime to heal and reconcile. This event was a sign post to remind me how far I had come since that night in 1981 when I was prepared to end the insanity…thank God, God intervened. That would have damaged me in a way Harley never could have. I don’t now if I would have ever recovered.

I visited other relatives, many, that rest there as well. I got back in my truck and headed south, headed home to the incredible life that had been born of distress, pain and confusion. A long drive which I drove in silence much of the way. There were so many memories, not just distant but recent ones. My lost but now found family, my family I grew up in, my husband and daughter, my friends…so many friends!

That from which I came is responsible for that which I became. From my current vantage point, Its good to go home and touch your roots. Its good to remember how far you have come. The journey is worth the effort.