Driving down memory lane

Friday, Jan. 23, 2015

Last week I drove to my aunt’s funeral in California. I lived in the Sacramento area for 10 years and have happy memories of holidays at my aunt and uncle’s house, with their five sons and assorted other family members.

At the funeral Mass, the priest’s homily saddened me. He is relatively new to the parish and hadn’t known my aunt before she got sick, so his comments focused on our Catholic beliefs of death and resurrection, rather than my aunt’s life and legacy.

Afterward, at the reception, I was shocked to see that the brothers – as my cousins are known – are wrinkled and gray. They are within 10 years of me, and we all have complaints that come with aging. Their children now have children. I remember the children as boys and girls, and recognized only one of them. I wouldn’t have known the grandchildren if I passed them in the street. The family has continued without me, as is only natural and right, but somehow I felt cast aside, even though it was I who left 15 years ago and haven’t returned.  

We didn’t have much to talk about, my cousins and I. When I lived there I worked at community newspapers, covering government, primarily. Driving in, I noticed that the Red Hawk Casino in Shingle Springs is open for business. While I was there a bitter battle was being waged between the county commissioners who opposed the casino, and the Miwok Indians who wanted to build it. I also noticed that the Elk Grove library is in a spacious new building; I remember it in a little place akin to a strip mall store. 

I didn’t ask my cousins about the changes; they don’t follow these sort of issues.

Instead, we recalled the past. A cousin of my mother’s generation told me a story I had never heard: When they were young, my mother saved the cousin’s life when she tried to join “the big kids” out on a raft in the water. The cousin couldn’t swim, so she tried to “bounce” her way out. She got in over her head, and my mother rescued her. (When I asked her, my mother said she didn’t have to use her lifeguard skills at all; the water was shallow enough that, being older and taller, she could stand on the bottom and haul the cousin to safety.)

Thinking back on the reception, I find it odd that we didn’t talk about my aunt. Perhaps for my cousins the loss was still too raw. It didn’t occur to me until later that I should have taken the opportunity to ask.

One reason I drove to the funeral because I wanted to revisit my old haunts. I left the church in plenty of time to drive by my grandparents’ old house, and to visit their graves. I also could have gone to Apple Hill, a farm trail where I went quite frequently with various friends whom I have not thought about for years.

In the end, I did none of that. I told myself it was because I wanted to get back over the mountain before dark – the steep, narrow, winding roads between Placerville and Reno are bad enough in the daylight – but the truth is that I didn’t want to see any more changes. I was too depressed by the funeral and the reception. I had wanted my visit to be a celebration of my aunt’s life, but it didn’t turn out that way, and as I drove away I just wanted to be alone with my memories.