Sunrise over the fields from my great great grandfather's house

The sun stretched its rose colored fingers across the corn fields and arched it’s back into the sky of this cool grey morning as I lay beneath a pile of quilts in the house my great great grandfather built. The only sounds were the toenails of the dog on the kitchen floor and the giggling of my boys who were crowded around the bar listening to Uncle Griff’s stories while they waited for their grits.

My great great grandfather had three wives over the years, and twenty three kids between them. My great grandmother was born to the last of his wives, in this very house, if the genealogy is correct. My grandmother visited here before she died and told them what she remembered of the place, including the fact that their great room was originally a saloon. Plausible in our gene pool. Erin, my cousin, is afraid to spend much time in the parlor because that’s where all of the family dead were waked for years, she was mortified that her mother had our children sleeping in that room. I like it in there, the ghosts are friendly.

It was hard to fall asleep last night. I spent a long time breathing quietly in the darkness, thinking about all of the unlikely events that have led to this moment in time. All of the paths, that if not taken, would have made my life impossible and would have kept this house from returning to our family. But, as the fates would have it, here I am, wrapped in the ghosts of history past, wondering what he was like, the old frenchman who built this place. I have only one picture of myself with his young daughter, when she was my ancient great grandmother: I’m propped carefully in her wheel chair bound lap, no doubt with my mother hovering just outside the photo frame. I know very little about who she was. My Dad says that in her last crippled days she told him, “In my mind, I’m a young girl, dancing.” And I’ve always liked that.

My grandparents' graves.

We visited my grandparents after breakfast. I stopped at the same florist we bought flowers for their funerals at and picked up a mixed bouquet that looked like fall to lay on their grave. Tony pulled the orange gerber daisy and stuck it in the cup holder of the van and declared that it looked more like me than Mim. Every time I took her flowers in life she told me I’d wasted my money, so she probably doesn’t mind that he poached one. At least she didn’t comment when we delivered them this time.

The children picked their way through the church yard, carefully skirting the edges of the burial plots of strangers and distant relatives in an effort to find their great grandparents. I brushed the debris from the mowers roaring in the other quarter of the cemetery from the top of the stone and patted all we have left of my fiesty french grandma and my curly haired scotch grandfather; Mim and Pip to me. We stood there a while and told stories to the kids. Elisha declared, dejectedly as we walked back to the car, “Mama, I don’t have one single memory of my Mimmy.” “That’s okay Elisha, you met her lots of times and she remembers you.” I tried to encourage him. And she does, I’m sure.

As much as I’d hoped to rest my back on their stone and talk with them for a while, I found that they weren’t there. Mim travels with me often, in my body, as I strongly resemble her, but in the world around me also. She appeared in Africa quite regularly, and most recently she visited me in an intense downpour while in the company of an old friend who met her once. I’m hoping she’ll find me again soon, as I have some questions to ask.

We spent the rest of the day with Mim’s sister-in-law, the only living wife of any of the Sutherland brothers. She cooked us a banquet worthy lunch, told us stories, old and new and hugged us as often as she could. I breathed as deep as I could to inhale her scent and preserve it in my heart until our next visit. She’s the aunt who smells like shortbread.

Stars were winking overhead and meteors were beginning to streak the velvet prairie sky by the time we hugged the twins goodbye and watched them disappear with their men into the night. I can’t remember when I’ve laughed so much. Amazing to see these girls, who toddled on the tips of my fingers along forest paths as babies drive off into fully formed lives. The children snored softly beneath roof beams laid by their great great great grandfather as we promised not to make it five years between visits this time. There are no words adequate to the blessing of sharing life and family with people as excellent as these, I’m so thankful that my children have had three days to soak in the marinade of their colorful lives and become part of the fabric that is our family.