It was July 1996 and I was away in Ohio for "Union Summer" - a month long internship through the AFL-CIO - with my friend Meta. I was at the house of one of the SEIU organizers, taking a break from passing out flyers and knocking on doors of low-paid nursing home workers (trying to convince them that forming a Union was in their best interest), when Meta got the page and called me.
This was pre-cell-phone days and I had given my parents Meta's pager so they would have some way to get ahold of me while I was gone from Milwaukee. You know, you always do that, give an emergency contact number, but you never think anyone will ever need to use it. Meta didn't say much when she called, just that "you need to call your family in Seattle, now" and I knew it couldn't be anything good.
I got my mom first, but she was crying too hard to talk so she handed the phone over to Dave, my older brother, the responsible one who always took care of things. Well, he would have to take care of things now, a lot more than he ever expected to, at the age of twenty-seven.
I heard him say something like the following: "There was an accident - on the hiking trip - Dad fell, and...he died Michele..." I don't know what came out of me, probably "oh my god" and some kind of protest "how could that be?!" and then crying. Someone brought me some toilet paper for the tears and probably sat next to me, touching my shoulder. I was mostly in shock, I'm sure, and just wanting someone to tell me what I was supposed to do next.
Meta came to pick me up, and took me back to the dorms at Kent State where we were staying, and helped me make my flight arrangements. We had to drive all the way from Akron to the airport in Cleveland? Cincinnati? I don't remember exactly, but recall there was one of those dramatic mid-western thunderstorms on the long drive, that continued during my red-eye flight back to Seattle:
...as we travel across the map of this world
and move through the crowded cabin
or simply stare out the small window
we are given, watch god play
with the fluff of our lives:
the weather outside like lasers
or a child playing with matches
illuminating the clouds and night-sky...
This was right after the crash of TWA flight 800, initially thought to be a terrorist bombing, and so security was newly heightened at all U.S. airports. [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800] Because of this, I wasn't met at the gate like I expected; instead Dave, my sister Stephanie and Dan Raymond (close friend of the family) met me at the security checkpoint, and I remember how strange that seemed at the time.
The next part is a bit of a blur, with all kinds of decisions and arrangements to be made about the death certificate, mortuary services, transportation of the body, the "viewing" and funeral, most of it taken on by Dave, as I remember. A lot of it seemed to be happening in gray haze and slow motion, until the technicolor moment when his casket arrived.
Kenna, my mother's college roommate, had driven the body all way from Omak, her town on the other side of the Cascade mountains, where his fall happened. She had also arranged for the casket - the most simple pine box with a beautiful carving of a bear, done by a local Native American wood-worker. My aunt, who flew in from L.A. with my poor shell-shocked grandfather (your children are supposed to outlive you, after all), commented on this: that it was a perfect symbol for my father, who was gruff and forbidding, but also beautiful and cuddly and majestic, in his own way.
I remember being there when the van pulled up with his casket - I had been in high-stress mode in moments leading up to the viewing, with all the family and friends in town, and wanting to do right by him, trying to take some of the burden off Dave. When my father's body finally arrived, and they brought its heavy weight in to rest on casters among flowers and photos, it suddenly seemed all too real and I just broke, cried my first really hard cry, which was like lifting a burden I hadn't even realized I was carrying.
Thank you for sharing this, Michele. I hadn't known how you had found out, or about your brother's role. I'm so sorry this happened.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you, so much, for reading Phyllis! I appreciate the sympathy and still remember how we found out that Buzz is buried right next to him at that beautiful cemetery. I was working on this last night, realized it was way too much and so have it broken into two maybe even three parts, so stay tuned, there's more, of course, with me, there's always more! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful. It almost makes me cry. I remember that I too stunned to cry. I finally did at some point, because it was a beautiful summer day in Seattle, and I cried because Dad would always say that that was why we lived in Seattle, for those beautiful summer nights when you could sit on the deck with a beer and listen to the ballgame, or maybe mow the lawn, with he always did with his dorky headphone radio on. That's a strong memory I have of him, his paint-spattered t-shirt, his sweat-worn Mariner hat, maybe wearing tennis shoes with dress socks. That was his element. That was the good life.
ReplyDeleteI also vividly remember the phone call from Mom telling me about the accident when I was working at Microsoft (I still remember what the office looked like, and my officemate Hannah, who is still a friend of mine). She cried... said something like, "I don't think he made it," and asked if I could come to her house. I was out of there like a shot, not saying anything to Hannah. I don't remember much after that, just Mom sitting on the couch crying with all her friends (Patty McKillop, et al). And then the priest, the older one (Kapfer) coming in to give us the official news, and Mom asking if he knew Paul, and he pretended to but you could tell he barely knew him.
As I said on that hike, "This helps me move on a bit, but I'll never get over it." I still feel that way today. I wish he was here to see his grandkids and his kids grown up. He'd be so proud.