old robe trail

the first day i really had on my own to grieve. not in tears, because they had their due space as i helped lower the casket and listened during the simple service; not in voice, because i had told my two stories and they had their place and been well heard; not in community, because i had stood with the family all weekend; but in silence. stillness. aloneness.

and it was beautiful. and fitting.

i journeyed back to a haunt i haven't visited since high school. it's out past granite falls and a wee hike down some switchbacks, out to a river bed and through some old railroad tunnels. a lot of changes have moved in these spaces since i last visited including a river bed that i had hoped to meander across. no can do. this was a raging river i timidly skirted around the edges of, hoping i wouldn't slip in with my iphone and journal in tow. i brought a feast of a salad, but no fork (or at least, i didn't realize i had a fork tucked away in a tupperware container left over from the weekend's drive - and i like messy salads). i brought my journal and an ipod i never turned on. i walked along the river and past the sign that said "no hikers beyond this point" and scrambled along a lot of mudslide wreckage to the end of the trail. on my way back, i picked a spot to sit and writeandwriteandwriteandwrite. and write a lot i did. and even hours later, i have only tapped the surface of my account of my grandfather and his funeral.


i'm going to do something i haven't done before which is transcribe (a rearranged version for narrative value) parts of my journal here once i get it all down. two aunts (my mom included) and uncle unable to make the burial deserve as many memories of the event as possible to make up for the lack of their own.

so, this is to be continued.