The Funeral

Aunt Shirley set out specific instructions for her funeral.  She wanted a graveside memorial, nothing more. The pastor said it was to be ten minutes long and that Shirley specifically said it had to start on time (that was so Shirley, we laughed) and so it did at 10:00 a.m.

The pastor read the selected verses, and in a very short homily (she didn't actually know Shirley) told of her education and her life on the farm.  We finished with the Lord's Prayer and that would have been that, except the people present did know Shirley and one by one stepped up with Shirley stories.

One woman made her a loaf of bread once using apricots. Shirley looked at it and said she shouldn't have bought anything so expensive, dismissing the idea that the woman could bake.

One of the older members of the crowd told how Shirley always told him to walk straight.  He said she thought he was trouble. He turned out fine.

I told about the time she checked my teeth.  She was proud of hers. (Gary wanted to bury a toothbrush and toothpaste with her.)

Another told about falling asleep when Shirley went on and on about the family history. She was considered the family historian.  I had the same experience once when I was supposed to keep her busy so Gary and a crew could clear the yard without her interference.  I listened as long as I could and finally noticed there was a dirty window.  I wrote "HELP!"  backwards on it.  Gary came back in and rescued me.

These family stories are what made the funeral special.

Tonight, I am back in Seymour.  Gary reports that he took Shirley's cats to their new home.  He will be back here in Seymour tomorrow. He will have to go back to the farm with his family to sort through old photos and mementos in a  couple of week.

Meanwhile, Gary and I will think about our future together. There will be much to report here. 

Changes

Tomorrow is the funeral. According to Shirley's instructions it was to be a very small funeral, with the short service at the cemetery, so the obituary said it would be private. She must have had more friends than she knew because Gary has been fielding calls for days from relatives who want to come to the service, some from as far as Madison, Wisconsin and Winona, Minnesota. Neighbors, too, want to pay their final respects.

Shirley was the last of her generation and the holder of photographs going back generations. Some of the people arriving tomorrow will want to come back to the farm house to look at the memorabilia and make plans to have copies made. Neighbors will share their memories of an old woman who lived alone for so, so long.

This evening, Gary and his sister Kathe had a small family gathering at a restaurant to discuss how to settle the estate. Will the farm eventually be sold? What about the farmhouse?

And what about Mama and Lily, the two cats? A neighbor down the road volunteered to take them in. She apparently has rescued other animals. Two sway backed old horses and a llama have found a home in the farmyard there. I hope Lily and Mama find happiness there, too. We'll keep in touch to make sure that is so.

My plan is to go to the funeral then return home to Seymour tomorrow afternoon, but I know how sad Gary can become. If he needs me, I am willing to stay longer.

We talk about the future but the truth is nothing much changes until the estate is probated and that could take a year. In the meantime, we continue as always with a sturgeon guard at the beginning of May and then camping for the summer.  The calendar fills up with events and life goes on. 

Memories, Nature and Ice Cream

After a morning discussion with his sister Kathe about insurance, funeral plans so on, Gary had the rest of the day free to go with me to take a drive.  We went to find childhood memories, nature, and ice cream.

First we drove to Lowell Park where I saw a golden kinglet two days ago.  Today, the roads were blocked off because of flooding so we retreated.

We came back down the road and stopped at a place Kathe had told us about.  Shirley's insurance agent had mentioned there was a truck there with the Harms name on it.  We stopped in and were directed behind a shed and sure enough, there was a red 1954 International truck. Painted on the side was the name G.A.Harms, Gary's uncle George, who died prior to the year 2000.  Gary remembered the truck well.  Since George sold it, it has been through two other owners but has been maintained very well. The truck bed  had recently been painted a bright red. The odometer read 69,000 miles which means it had been turned over more than once.

It reminded me of Michael Perry who wrote about his own love affair with an International truck in his book Truck, which every man should enjoy reading.

The next stop was Culvers for ice cream, an essential part of any day.

We stopped at Oakwood Cemetery and indeed, Shirley's grave had been excavated and the tombstone hauled away for inscription of her final date.

We circled around looking through Dixon, Rock Falls and Stirling for Gary's boyhood haunts.  We stopped at the nature areas I had marked.  At Rock Falls, we spotted coots at Lawrence Park, but couldn't go very far because of the high water.  The city swimming pool was an unapproachable island at the far end of the park.  We moved on.

We went south of Stirling on Woodland Road to go to Oppold Marina and City Park. The first bird we saw was a great egret, tall and white and looking happy to be there.  He was followed by scaup, cormorants and way in the distance, a flock of American pelicans.

Next was Sinnissippi (native for Rock River) Park, another Stirling Park.  At this point, the Rock River widens at becomes shallow with MIssissippi-like sloughs here and there.   Gary's family used to have reunions at this park so it held even more memories for him.  There were more pelicans and scaup here.

Our last stop was at the Prairieville Cemetery where Gary's great-grandparents and other ancestors are buried.  We walked around and looked at the stones.  Most are granite so the dates are still as clear as they day they were carved in the 1800s.

It was the kind of day one should spend before a funeral. There were memories, yes, but there was also nature who tells us that life is going on as it has for millenia.  Long after we are gone, the pelicans and cormorants will still be going about their business and that is as it should be.

Rainy Day

Here we are in the farmhouse, all of my plans to go birding for naught.

It's been raining non stop all day and it's not just rain.  We get occasional hail, loud thunderclaps, high winds and in Dixon itself, power outages.  Gary's sister visited the funeral home to discuss arrangements.  She sat with the funeral director next to the window so they could look at the papers he had for her to sign.  Then she went to the attorney's office and again, no power, so light from a window.  She is the executor of her aunt's will so has to do all that stuff.

Gary and I briefly went to Stirling to pick up a part for his riding lawnmower and while we were at it went to stores to walk around and around to get some exercise, but found our feet getting wet going through the parking lots. I found two pairs of lightweight pants suitable for camping.  They were half price on a tag sale, plus I got fifteen percent off for being old.

I still could have driven to a nature area but there are flood warnings out so driving into a marsh didn't seem a wise thing to do.

So we sit here in the farmhouse reading books and playing with our computers.  We had one big argument about a documentary on female superheroes, me saying girls need them and him saying they weren't good role models.  He was wrong of course but I find the best way to end these arguments is to tell him to "eff off."  Things like that are never resolved anyhow, plus sooner or later, he sees things my way. That is the Wonder Woman in me, I guess.

Lowell Park, Dixon, Illinois

After the funeral on Saturday, I don't think I will be back in Dixon, Illinois all that much. I've been here many times before, usually to attend funerals with Gary and of late, to visit Shirley and to keep Gary company as he stayed here to be near her in the nursing home.

This week, I thought I would like to visit some of the places I've never seen.

Gary stayed at the house fielding phone calls about the funeral so I was on my own. I found there were four places to take hikes in the vicinity. I thought I might go to the Franklin Creek State Nature Park and was driving that way when I saw the sign for Lowell Park.

Gary once took me there during one of his going back in time drives. He told me that he ran a concession stand there, selling hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and sundries like film, candy, and so on. He made five or six thousand dollars a summer, which was a lot of money in 1963.

We attended a picnic in Woodcote, Lowell Park's cottage, for Gary's 45^th high school reunion.

Today, I wanted to take time to hike on some of the trails. I started down at the Rock River, which is getting very high. The beach is mostly under water, but Gary says this is very common this time of year. Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard there before he went to Hollywood.

The trails were not marked, there were no trail maps, so I immediately got lost. This is one of the great things about hiking, not knowing exactly where one is going. However, I could hear traffic noise and as long as I generally aimed toward it, I knew I would find the entrance and of course, I did. The woods were still mostly brown with a little green beginning to peek out of the old leaves.

Woodpeckers were working the trees, but I caught sight of a little bird. What was it? I noted the gray body and the yellow slash on the top of its head. Like all warbler sized birds, it didn't want to sit still so I followed it around the trail. When following warblers and their ilk, I often think of Audubon who had his people shoot the birds so he could paint them. At least this time, the birds could hide behind leaves.

When I found myself at the nature center I went in to query the attendant. I found a young woman there who had just begun to work there for the summer. I asked about the bird but it turned out she knew very little about avian life. The naturalist had started her out with a sheet of photos of common birds. She still didn't know the difference between a dark eyed junco and a chickadee.

The woman said she had always wanted to go camping in Wisconsin. I found two booklets on the Nicolet National Forest in my glove compartment and took them in to the center for her.

I thumbed through my Sibleys and eventually figured it out. I had seen a golden crowned kinglet. I hadn't seen once since I was hiking hgh in the Rockies at the Fourth of July Pass years ago. It was a nice find.

When I got back to the farm, I parked the car and was just about to go in the house when I noticed something moving in Gary's van. A male cardinal had flown in through the open door and gotten himself tangled in a webbed hanger and was frantic. I got Gary from the house to untangle the poor thing.

Nothing like a day with nature to chase the winter blues away.

The Gathering

It is Monday and I am in Dixon with Gary. He was ready to come home yesterday morning and then his aunt Shirley died in the nursing home. Now it is time for the gathering.

I arrived early because I remembered that Gary was a great comfort to me when my mother died. He took me for long walks in woods and marshes to look at life going on. It was my thought that he and I could visit some of the nature areas around here this week. There are four preserves in the area that should have some interesting birds during this migration season.

His sister Kathe, the executor, will be here on Wednesday to finalize funeral plans and talk to the lawyer to settle accounts and discuss the will. The ownership of this farm passes to Kathe and Gary. It is a big farm and worth a great deal. Now they must decide what to do with it. Once the probate process is over, it seems Gary can live comfortably for the rest of his days.

On Thursday, Gary's nephew Angelo will be driving down from Appleton to help with clearing up some of the buildings. Shirley's two cats must find a home somewhere. Perhaps the farmers who rent this land will take them.

On Friday, Amanda, the niece, will be here to look at family heirlooms. More decisions will be made. On Friday night we will meet other relatives for a private meal at a local restaurant. The funeral was delayed so the many out of town relatives can come.

Shirley set out specific funeral instructions. There will be no viewing, no church service. A few words will be said at the cemetery over the closed coffin on Saturday morning and that will be that. I will head home immediately afterward and Gary, Kathe, Angelo and Amanda will follow on Sunday.

The final dates will be chiseled on the tombstone and that will be the end of Shirley's story. She had no children. Will anyone ever wonder who she was?

Passing the Torch

Gary called last night to tell me Aunt Shirley died in the nursing home. It was long expected. She wanted to die so it was a blessing.  She was 92.

She was the last of that generation. Her brothers George and Dwight (Gary's father) went before her.

This week Gary told me about rural postal delivery which began 110 years ago.  Before that farmers had to take their horses and buggies into the nearest town to get their mail.  The Harms family have been on the farm for around 150 years, so they were among those who were first getting that rural delivery and have been postal customers all those years. Until Thursday, that is, when Gary and his sister suspended their delivery. Mail will now be forwarded to Kathe.

The telephone was cut off earlier in the week. The only calls lately were from telemarketers who like to prey on the elderly.

So now Gary has finished his work on the farm. When the funeral service is done, he is done. The farm will be watched over by the Reevers, the farmers who have been renting the land for so long. In time, the farm will be sold.

At one time, Gary's father thought that Gary should go back to the farm and carry on the Harms tradition, but I told him to do that, he would have to procreate and at his age, that is probably not something he wants to do. I certainly wouldn't be in that equation!

Gary has wonderful memories of time spent on that farm, but these days he loves Wisconsin more, especially the wild north woods. Flat Illinois farms no longer charm him.

So I leave tomorrow to spend a week there, to walk the fields with him, to look at his boyhood haunts.

After the funeral we'll head north. At the welcome center at the Illinois/Wisconsin border, he'll get out of his van, kneel down and kiss the ground. Then we will come home, because this house is now his home. This state is where he belongs.