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Here is where I need to be.
The new Poplar trees are a variety with extra large leaves and their leaves
are fluttering, waving, moving so much like the wave of a queen's hand. Deep
purple leaves of the ornamental plums add rich dark color to contrast with
the pink azaleas at their feet. The trickle of the water over the rock
fountain gives a sound to the quiet landscape. The sharp tall leaves of the
Dutch Iris will soon bring a blossom of white delicate blooms and they will
look like a poor man's orchid. If I must leave my place for a time to say
goodbye to my brother, it isn't what I want to do. Surely though, if others
can do it, then I can too.
Are his ashes blowing about
over the prairie around his home place? The sixty, some miles from here? I
wonder? Are they laughing with some particular observation about their
predicament. Would they whisper with his half smile all aglow using the love
in his face and eyes to be caught in the breezes over the bending grasses?
It would be appropriate after all, wouldn't it?
My brother was shut away from
our Dad because of his mother and Dad's divorce. Only now can he throw away
the chains of that heartbreak. He was abandoned in so many ways but in other
ways the love of his grandparents gave him a tremendous strength. He learned
early that his own hand and body would be all that would sustain him. I
believe the realities of life were upon him but through fortitude, strength,
and character he was able to rise above these to build a family, ranch lands
and so much more to a spread of such beauty its way can only make a
statement to his genius. How he manipulated the land but still left it free
to be its own in a pristine way spoke of his wish to offer respect to higher
powers.
It was a mistake for our
families to keep secret our brother and sister, status. This hiding of the
truth from us only allowed me in my little girl way to fall in love with him
from the time we were children. My mother, who would have been his
step-mother, sneaked precious moments for the three of us. My little
brother, big brother and myself at her hands were given stolen time to play.
I can see Paul in my mind while he pushed our younger brother about the
yard. Did the toy metal airplane somehow stay in his heart all through the
years until he bought his own real machine. The spinning of the blade in
front of the small vehicle that was rigged with pedals must have given both
boys great visions of what thrills waited for them when they were men. Too
soon our quiet little world there beneath the great maple tree and fenced
yard was discovered. Who was the one to run to tell about our forbidden
play? All those who were living and could tell are now gone and so what is
the value in knowing? Just as suddenly as Paul appeared there in our world,
he was all at once gone away from us. The makeup of the child's mind allowed
us to forget and I hope he did so, as well. However, I believe he was old
enough to remember well what was done to us. The gentle ways of my Native
American mother who was living during the time of radical groups involved in
bigotry must have been led by something of a higher reason coming from her
people. She wished to have the boys after their own mother had deserted them
but, of course, this was something totally out of the possibilities of life
and living. Only today does Mother talk of those things. She praised the
grandmother of my brothers who was such a good cook and doted on the boys
with a loving concern. Whoever and whatever forces were in control are not
important today. And then for anyone who wishes to return to the cruel, ways
of the customs of those days, I tell you now, I'm not one of them. Years
later, my uncle told me Paul was my brother. All at once, I understood why I
had so much love for him. Of course, we love our brothers and sisters,
unconditionally.
The very large room where his
memorial was held today filled with his friends and neighbors who had
enjoyed Paul's story telling. The friend who traveled over with me made the
comment. “I've never heard so much laughter at a funeral.” The laughter came
from the audience as one or the other who told of some incident in their
lives, which was involved with some of Paul's wily ways in dealing with his
work and life. He was able to inspire the people around to join him in his
quest to build a world that was bigger than life. If he used the materials
of the earth around him and only his hands to do this, so much the better.
For this reason the speaker spoke of him as “a man of the earth.”
I went into that room late as
we have always done in order to give the best seats to others. The reward
was that I could see out over the crowd as I stood at the back of the room.
This ranching community in attendance was a gift and celebration of my
brother's spirit of unconquerable fortitude. Instead of a sad farewell the
joyful laughter healed my aching heart and if I stood very still I could see
his face blended and mixed in through the crowd. His grin and joking comment
while his silhouette stood out of the building and was there against the
giant rolling clouds of the prairie might have been, “Aw, I don't know, we
wuz down there by the meadow the other day when I looked up in the sky and
there was the strangest thing you have ever seen........... |
