My Dear One,

Rappahannock County.  My flesh has deep roots in this place, buried beneath the shifting sands of this earth, under the great expanse of blue sky.  Generations of ancestors who lived here, loved here, defended what they believed in wars away from here, and then returned to die here and rest in its quiet embrace.  No bourgeois or even upper-class in my direct line, but hard-working men and women who knew the definition of true simplicity, but also hardship and tragedy.  I know some of that tragedy myself.  It repeats somehow, rearing its head every few generations, outlining and defining life stories, signing its signature in blood red.

I did not emerge from some turreted castle in the sky, where goodness was within and evil came from without.  Sleeping Beauty had that enchanted fairy tale experience.  Not I.  So I never sleep, because one learns not to let down her guard, when the evil comes from within.

But I did know the goodness of the love of a Rappahannock born and bred grandfather.  He was not born into privilege either, and he himself knew a little of the evil that came from within.  Conscientious and intelligent, his keen eye was quick to observe what came of such behavior.  He rose above, with hard work and diligence, living in authenticity – a very representation of the word.  He became the very first man in my life to paint the landscape of true love for my eyes.  Swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger … he lived that as beautifully as I’ve ever seen a human live it.  A true gentleman, a man of few words, but when I entered his presence, his strong arms enfolded me in a hug that had the whole of unconditional love in it.  He didn’t have to verbally express his love for me … I knew it.  I felt it.

In his later declining years, I played the piano and sang for him, all the old songs he loved, only to turn around, and in the silence, witness the quiet tears rolling down his face.  Strength in tears.  I knew where he was.  Through my music, I had the privilege of accompanying him down back country roads, alongside meandering streams and meadows, spending time gazing at hazy blue ridges.  We traveled there in our minds together, the songs as our vehicle; melodies and harmonies of times gone by.

Now I come to the place he loved, the place his heart never left.  Without him, but never without him, as he is always with me.

Sitting on the ground where my great-great grandparents are eternally resting puts much into perspective.  What would they think of me, their introspective, eternally brooding and never resting great-great granddaughter?  My eyes survey the landscape, the beauty of the Blue Ridge stretching on for miles.  A mockingbird sings, providing a musical accompaniment for my wandering thoughts.  Did they hear mockingbirds?  Did they ever stop to appreciate the beauty of its songs?  The mockingbird itself, a living diary, repeating all it has heard and learned in its travels.  My mind lists off his imitations as I hear them – the blue jay, the tufted titmouse, the bluebird, the robin. The mockingbird is a listener, just like my grandfather.  He too learned the art of listening first, then sharing what you learn, for those who have ears to hear it.  That bird knew I was listening, and fluttered closer to be sure I would catch everything he had to say, sharing the wisdom of what the other birds had to say to me through him.

Would my great-great grandparents have laughed at my flights of fancy, to wonder at such things?  A questioning child, with the word why always on her lips, and innocent stars in her eyes.  The why still remains, but the innocence is long gone.

What tragedies did they experience?  One does not have to travel far to see an example; a son departed too soon who lies in his rest next to them.  I know more than most probably know of such distant relatives.  My grandfather’s mind was sharp and attentive to detail.  He shared stories, and dates, which I wrote down, and which later bore out with incredible accuracy after research.  He scratched out some thoughts as well, rich reflections in cheap spiral-bound notebooks, eloquent expressions from a man who never made it to high school.  A father who pulled him out of school time and again to work the harvest, to do the spring planting, to engage in the work needed to maintain a farm.  At a young age, he realized he could never catch up on work he missed, and determined that if he was pulled out again, he would never go back.  But one does not need schooling to gain wisdom.  And he had wisdom, if one had ears to listen to the slow Virginian drawl.  He credited his grandmother for that wisdom, spending much of his time with her in his childhood years.  That same woman, buried here, beneath my feet.  My great-great grandmother … and next to her, my great-great grandfather.

Despite the light of the sun, my thoughts turn dark … thankful they were spared from knowing what became of their great-granddaughter.  More thankful that my grandfather never knew the tragic end of his beloved daughter.  My mother.  If it weren’t for her, if it wasn’t for him, if it weren’t for them, I would not be sitting on this hill, with the warmth of the sun on my skin, the mockingbird’s song in my ear, and such beauty in my eyes.

Sitting in the cemetery, I imagine their voices whispering in the wind, joining with my ancestors, joining with the mockingbird, their conversations rising as high as the pinnacles of the Blue Ridge before me.  Voices forever entwined, springing from generations of Rappahannock earth, sifting through my fingers.

All my love,

Your Never Sleeping Beauty

Don’t hang on … nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.  It slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy. 

Dust in the wind … all we are is dust in the wind.  ~Kerry Livgren