Harmony Grove
Well, the last post was kind of a downer, so I’d better put something up that leaves everyone on a cheery note, right?
As you read this, dear internet, I’m in West Virginia. The dark heart of the Ohio Valley. We have a family plot there where we’ll be burying my grandmother on Saturday. I’m always a little creeped out at the family plot because my grave is there, as well. Luckily the dates aren’t on the stone yet, though I kind of wish they were so I could plan in advance a little better.
The family plot is much larger than the traditional sort of fenced-in square out behind the house. It’s located up on a hill, with the remnants of a crumbling Baptist church that is now defunct perched on the side. In great West Virginia tradition, the ancient church is on blocks. This is because the side of the hill has given way beneath it, not because it’s actually a trailer.
Our family fills this hillside. We’ve all been planted there since well before the Civil War. No one can quite say when the first graves went up, but brave souls can beat around in the forest and find what looks to be gravestones from way before the official mid-19th Century date on the church.
Harmony Grove is the name of this forgotten cemetery, where the only caretakers are family members. You weave along a one-lane gravel road to get there, park in the bushes, and scramble up the hill.
My great grandparents are there, and my mom is right beside them. Now my grandmother beside her. I don’t know where dad’s buried. Somewhere in Georgia, I suppose. The Army buried him and, when they asked me for a preference, I told them “wherever it’s free.” Can’t say he’d be welcome in Harmony Grove, though. Perhaps hanging from a tree by the entrance…
In fact, do you think the Army would have paid for that? Because it’d be a kick for a bunch of folks, living and dead, in Harmony Grove. Have his remains in a gibbet, pecked clean by crows, creaking back and forth in the wind.
Funerals are strange things. By the time the person has died and the business of death has been handled (I am, thankfully, exempt from that this time around), you’re not really sad anymore. The numbness has set in. You’ve said your goodbyes, you’ve begun to heal and make peace with the reality of the loss. Now it’s a few mumbled words from some preacher who has his hand out for a tip when he’s done and an overpriced casket going into the ground, the gravediggers nearby with their backhoe watching in respectful yet impatient silence.
Family and friends breaking up into separate groups afterwards. Some deep alone time at the end of the day, probably at various bars throughout town. We’re not a family of wakes, celebrations, or warmth.
I’ve got my eye on Applebees. I’ve had several 17-Martini funerals thanks to them. And a few 17-martini weddings, as well. I like drinking at the bar in Applebees because you can get really ugly around families and respectable people and eat their leftovers. Or eat them, if the gun store will ever clear me for that AK-47 purchase.