Forty Years Too Late
A Delayed Closure
Gathering
I arrived in town a little early, spent about an hour with my sister Jeanne, then took the ten-minute drive to East Hill. I was the first to arrive. Adie came shortly after. I knew it was her, but she didn’t recognize me or remember that Jeanne, a close friend of hers, was my sister. Before I could say anything, she said, “Hi, I’m Adie.”
We didn’t see Debbie & company yet, but Elena and her mom came to where we were. I called Debbie, and she was in another area a few hundred feet away, the right area. We went over there and met the rest.
Debbie brought her mom, Deanna, and her 3-year-old granddaughter. Patty and Pam arrived right at 2:00, as did a couple of others. We all said hello to each other, and most of us were acquainted somewhat even after decades.
The Long Delay
This get-together was forty years too late. Debbie had planned this for her sister Teri and came up from North Carolina with her mom. It wasn’t possible in 1978, but those there needed closure that we couldn’t get then.
Debbie personally invited some of us and told us to spread the word among Teri’s old friends and classmates. There were about a dozen of us. These were all friends of Teri’s and from different groups with whom she’d been friends. School, her neighborhood, church, the rougher crowd, the quiet crowd, all those she fit in with so well.
I was the only man there. It’s been forty years, and I’m the only man who remembered? I thought about my shirt-tail cousins Randy and Marty, who passed away and were also close friends with her. I wished they’d been able to join me there. Still, was I the only man still alive that felt compelled to be there?
The temperature was about 30 degrees with a slight breeze and plenty of clouds. The soil was mostly frozen, and we got chilly after a few minutes of standing. Unlike 1978 there wasn’t much snow on the ground, just a dusting.
The cemetery sits on the south side of a knoll on a hill atop the city. At this time of year, the view was barren, rustic, and as frigid as the weather. While more picturesque in warm sunny weather, now it was just cold.
Time Has Come
I got a hug from Pam and acknowledged I’d seen she’d recently become a grandmother, then I got to say hi to Patty. That was nice. When I said hi and gave a hug to Patty, she said, “I’d hoped you’d be able to come.” It was so kind of her to say that. I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in a little over a year.
Others came and said hello, and most recognized me. I stuck out like a sore thumb being the only man there. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, miss being there to pay tribute to my dear friend that I still think of very often.
In the snow, Debbie found Teri’s grave in about 2 minutes. It usually takes me 15–30 minutes without snow. I always think of it as a game Teri’s trying to play with me. We gathered around the headstone with silk flowers and other mementos.
Patty leaned over, touching my arm to tell me, “I almost brought an onion.” She had previously shared a story about Teri enticing her to bite into an onion as if it was an apple. That’s something I appreciated about Teri’s sense of humor and Patty’s. It was a welcome ice breaker for my uneasiness.
Someone said a prayer, and we proceeded to lay our flowers and mementos on the grave. After a few minutes of talking, we all left. We’d been at the cemetery for about a half-hour altogether.
Closure
Several of us went to lunch at a local sports bar. Such a debriefing afterward was impossible at her funeral when there were as many as two hundred in attendance. I still felt like a fish out of water being the only man there, but just spending a little more time with those ladies was delightful.
Years ago, a psychic told me that I “hadn’t properly mourned” Teri’s death. When I was young, I wasn’t able to. I tried to cry but couldn’t. My coping mechanisms weren’t always appropriate and mainly were suppressed.
I needed this graveside memorial as much as anyone there. It helped. It allowed me to put some things in their proper place. I left lunch with hugs from Patty, Pam, Debbie, and Deanna and headed for home knowing that finally there was a close to the chapter.
Shout-outs to other writers on Medium you may want to check out: MarkfromBoston, Margie Willis, Oluwatomisin Awe, Suzanne Pisano, RGomez, You,Reece Reid, Michael L Butler, Scot Butwell, Scott Younkin, Jameson Steward, Rodrigo S-C, Judy Derby BSc., Janin Lyndovsky, Adrienne Beaumont
