The Cousin Under the Rock

The Wright Cemetery is exactly one mile from my house. For decades, I accompanied my mother on what she called Decoration Day to leave silk flower arrangements on the graves of her parents and her first husband. Years later, our cemetery visits grew to include my father and his parents who were buried at the St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery in Shepherd. Bringing flowers to the cemeteries was never something she saw as optional. My mother took this job as seriously as if she had taken an oath. Women of her generation who were homemakers took great pride in the tasks of hearth and home. With no bosses to hand out job performances, the ladies of the neighborhood took on the role of senior management. With keen eyes and mostly silent tongues, they made their observations about everything from the manner in which clothes were hung on someone’s wash line to the number of weeds in their flower bed. All things domestic were fair game for discussion, and they rarely missed an opportunity to assess how they measured up compared to the ladies living within a five mile radius. Decoration Day was one of those opportunities.

At least a month beforehand, my mom would begin talking about putting flowers out at the cemetery. Long before there were places like Hobby Lobby and Michaels, we walked the aisles of the Alma Scotts store and the St. Louis Five and Dime looking for artificial flowers. We searched for the most realistic looking bouquets at the best price, traversing the aisles until she had seen every last offering available. When we had found the flowers that suited her, we would take them home and fill pots with field dirt. The plastic roses, daisies, and mums were arranged to the best of our ability, and then the discussion would begin about when to make our rounds to deliver the flowers.

According to my mother, there was a two-day window for flower placement at the cemetery. Too soon and the neighbors might think that these were just old flowers that had been sitting there all winter - flowers that you couldn’t be bothered to remove in a timely fashion. Too late and all the neighbors leaving their bouquets wouldn’t see yours when they left theirs and assume that your loved one hadn’t been loved at all. So the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day became the only days she was willing to deliver our flowers to the cemetery.

My mother’s Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Holly were buried nearby at the Wright Cemetery, and for years my mother kept notice of their gravesites. Their daughters, Wilma and Doris, had taken care of the plot for years, cutting back the sedum they’d planted and cleaning the headstone each year within a few days of Memorial Day. These practical women knew how to make a dreary task more tolerable, always bringing along a bottle of wine to enjoy while they worked. My mother had fond childhood memories of these two older cousins who doted on her whenever she visited their home. As teenagers, these cousins would dress up to go out for the evening in a whirl of beautiful fabric and fragrance, impressing my mother who had yet to reach the age of glamour and glitz herself.

Eventually, Doris and Wilma passed away. The gravesite that they had tended, however, continued to be taken care of. My mother assumed that some of the granddaughters were taking care of it but couldn’t be sure as they didn’t show up during her two-day window. She didn’t know their first names or their married names. Google was no help at all given that I only knew the surname of their birth family.

Maybe it was all the time I spent at the cemetery, but eventually I developed an interest in genealogy. Family history on my maternal grandfather’s side was scarce. The unseen cousins continued to visit the cemetery every year, coming and going at random times. The previous year they hadn’t made it until mid-June, my mother noted with a hint of judgment in her voice.

It was early May the following year when I decided to write them a letter and leave it at Eleanor and Holly’s gravesite. Initially, my reasons for contacting them were somewhat selfish. I hoped to learn more about this side of the family – stories, photos, anything they might have to share. In the letter, I explained who I was and included my cell phone number. I told them where I lived, just around the corner in the house where their grandmother had grown up. I found a white glittery rock the size of a softball and brought it to the cemetery, tucking it close to the headstone with my note beneath it in a Ziploc bag. The cemetery has a circle drive and I drove through every week to see if my note was still there. Eleanor and Holly’s gravesite was visible from the drive, and I could see whether or not they had found it without having to get out of my car. Six weeks later, the note was still there under the rock.

“They probably aren’t coming this year,” my mother said one afternoon, pointing out that mid-June had come and gone. I sat at her kitchen table, feeling defeated. It had seemed like such a good plan and I had been so hopeful. My interest in family history had, unfortunately, come too late. I couldn’t expect that these granddaughters would continue to take care of this gravesite forever. I would have to accept that any of the memories these two cousins had would forever remain theirs alone.

The cemetery is on a gravel road that isn’t the route I would normally take home from my mom’s house, but it’s not out of the way and I sometimes take the backroads home. As I left her house that evening, I told her I was going to stop by the cemetery and retrieve my note and the rock. She agreed that I might as well. Maybe it was just distraction, or maybe it was something more that made me forget to turn down Jefferson Road and take the cemetery route home. It was dark by the time I remembered that I had planned to go home that way. Now it was a job for another day.

The very next day, two spirited women arrived at The Wright Cemetery. Margo arrived first and found my note. Finding this unexpected note in this unexpected place addressed to The Granddaughters of Eleanor and Holly Wright frightened her. She waited for her sister, Sally, to arrive before opening it together. They read my note with excitement and immediately drove to the farm around the corner where their grandmother had grown up. They had come to find me.

My son, then 17, answered the door. They told him the story of finding the note at the cemetery, brandishing it as proof. He was suspicious and told them that leaving a note at the cemetery didn’t sound like something his mom would do. Twenty miles away and mid-haircut, my cell phone rang.  “There are two feisty ladies here saying that you left a note for them at the cemetery.” I remember screaming into the phone in disbelief when I realized what he was saying. “I can be home in 45 minutes. Can they wait?” They said they would go get coffee and come back. I broke the speed limit on the way home, hair still dripping wet.

Strangely enough, I don’t remember much about that first meeting other than that they were lively and fun and beyond my brightest hopes. I hadn’t imagined that we might like each other, or begin a lasting friendship. I hadn’t imagined that these women, in turn, would bring even more cousins into our family, introducing us to Barbara who meets with us regularly and Jeannie who I correspond with through letters. And I hadn’t imagined that a letter left under a rock at the cemetery would be the bridge that would span the divide between my mother’s past and my future.

What I do remember in vivid detail is the first time we all met with my mother. My mom was never outwardly emotional, and aside from the times I saw her cry at her first husband’s gravesite, I could count on one hand the times I had seen her shed tears. Over apple pie and coffee at my house, I listened to my newfound cousins reminisce with my mom about the people and memories they had in common. The sparks of recognition as names and places were volleyed back and forth was such a joyous thing to witness. When it was time to go, one of them hugged her and I held back my own tears as I watched tears spill from my mom’s dark brown eyes. Until that moment, I had never realized how precious her own family memories had been to her. My dad’s family was large and when they married, she became one of them. She had occasionally talked about her cousins while I was growing up, but people that you rarely see or talk to slowly work their way into the background of everyday life. Visits and letters back and forth became less frequent, eventually stopping altogether. I saw something in my mom that day that I had never seen before - a glimpse into a time when she hadn’t been anyone’s wife or mother and life had been filled with all the things that make childhood shimmer in the rearview mirror.

Now once a year, three cousins and three sisters squeeze in around a table, delighted to nourish these family relationships that have flourished in the ensuing years since our first meeting. The only thing I had hoped for was a photo of our mutual great-grandmother Frances, and thanks to these new cousins, I have one now. One of them affectionately refers to me as ‘the cousin under the rock’, a title I am happy to claim.

We still marvel at the whole thing, a chance meeting that came so close to never happening. Maybe it was my tendency towards distraction. Or maybe a great aunt that I’ve only seen in photos guided me home that night 15 years ago. I’d like to believe it’s the latter. It’s kind of thrilling to think that it might be possible one day for me to create connections between family members who have become disconnected long after I’m gone. I can’t imagine a better occupation in the afterlife than being the reason people wonder about the unexplainable coincidences and strange occurrences that happen too often to be flatly dismissed. What an incredible thing it would be to discover that the space between being distracted and being the distraction is just at the edge of our fingertips and paper-thin.