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One year, 8 months and 11 days out -- Six moments from Miz Lilla's funeral (and an afterword)

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As those of you who read last week's diary entry know, my second mother, Mrs. Lilla Pratt Rosamond, was buried in Columbus, Mississippi on Saturday. Excerpts of the piece I sent you then ran in the Commercial Dispatch, my hometown paper, and her long obituary included me as an honorary pallbearer. Because of that and so much more, I made my way back home. Knowing me as all y'all do by now, you know I could spend most of this perfectly unfolding day sharing more of Miz Lilla and our lives back then with you. It would be nice but it wouldn't get any blueberries planted. So, instead, I will share with you six (and only six) moments from Miz Lilla's funeral, and their aftermath. I hope you enjoy.

For those of you who may not have received the original remembrance of Miz Lilla (I know many of you did but at least some of you didn't), I have also appended that original piece ("Memories of my second mother") following this update. I have only changed about a dozen words from the first draft of that piece, mainly to be more accurate (and, as always, more alliterative). Finally, for those of you who now know (or soon will) this remarkable woman, there is another gift at the end of this first section. Now which six moments should I mention ....?

The Natchez Trace gift-wraps for me every trip I take back home – I only have to go a quarter-mile off my property (from my south-western corner, across Sharkey's old hay fields) to enter the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is always my way back home to Mississippi, from the first time it was paved up here. The Natchez Trace is an old bison and elk trail, used by American Indians for centuries as a major trading route (the "Path of Peace", they called it and it was used that way). The Trace became one of the first routes by which settlers broke free from the coastline-hugging colonies to settle and trade inland. It is now a two lane highway, now (as then) from Nashville to Natchez, a smooth, narrow, slow-paced (50 mph, strictly enforced) ride for me back home.

The vagaries of our current economy (plus my still-intact Gold card standing) allowed me to rent a 2009 Mazda from Hertz for (get this) $10.65 per day. (Unbelievable). So instead of taking my 22 year old pick-um up truck, I could ride in luxury (and cruise-controlled calm) down to my hometown. It is a routine (and a trip) that I've taken many times. It still refreshes, it still slows the pace, it still helps focus the mind. Winding slowly through the foothills of southern Tennessee and northern Alabama, crossing the wide, wide Tennessee river (a bridge that gives me vertigo, makes me thankful that, if need be, I can swim) and then depositing me on a faster, but no less empty, stretch of Mississippi state highway, starting at Mantachie; passing near Tupelo and Aberdeen; through the farm field cross-roads of Bigbee and Ozark, Hamilton and Evergreen; through the narrow small-town streets of Vinegar Bend in Amory, and then to home. Almost right on time.

Faces at the Memorial – I remembered (from the paper) that Miz Lilla's services were at the First Methodist Church. I just had a hard time (for a few minutes) remembering which hometown church that was. So I drove by the First Baptist and then the (shuttered) First Presbyterian until (two blocks later), I found First Methodist. As usual, the best sign that I am where I am supposed to be in my hometown were the faces of a familiar classmate and another of Bill's close friends, Eddie, and his wife Janice. I parked my car and joined with them to enter the visitation, a half hour before Miz Lilla's memorial service.

As expected, the visitation hall was crowded. It took me about a minute to get to Bill and to give him a big hug. He looked fine, his wife Lynn close by sharing in the greetings of the many, many people who filled that room. I have been gone from my hometown for over 40 years now, and so it is not surprising that I knew only a few faces there. There were at least a half-dozen classmates, though, several whose faces have still not changed a second since our graduation while grizzled folks (like me) must confirm for others that we are, indeed, who we've been pointed out to be.

I had that "are you Bernie?" experience with another amazing woman from my young adulthood, Mrs. Swartz, a transplanted Swede (or was she Norwegian?) who came with her husband from the upper Midwest to work on one of the large remaining plantation farms on what we call our Black Prairie. Miz Swartz birthed some of the most handsome and athletic men and women who ever came from Columbus – her four sons all 6'2" or better, her three daughters ... (well, they were also statuesque and very, very pretty). We hugged and visited for a few minutes. Then I circulated, shaking the hands of classmates and their wives, and the hands of Miz Lilla's friends who thanked me for the segments of the remembrance that my hometown paper had printed.

Fifteen minutes into circulating, another White classmate reminded me of the names of two of Miz Lilla's Black male house workers who were just about our age. I had worked side-by-side with them when I had said my own young man's magic words: "Is there anything I can do for you while I'm visiting this time, Miz Lilla?" She had put me to work with Henry and Willie, in the steamy heat of early August, to clear a grown-over bank that ran from her mansion's portico to a never-before-seen (by me) sitting garden in a wooded place below. The three of us, all in our late 20s, worked like east Indian coolies all afternoon, cutting through the kudzu and the honeysuckle, snipping and dragging and pulling and toting all that living greenery (and the rotting wood it covered) further down the ravine below the now-uncovered wrought iron benches. We worked hard and broke every hour to replace with ice water the rivers of sweat that greased our steep descent that day. At sunset, Miz Lilla could once again see her favorite reading spot clearly from the house, standing in the wall-size window above us in her father's study. She had waved and smiled back then, proud as she was of all three of us.

That hot, sticky memory came flooding back as I shook Willie's hand (two fewer fingers than before) and then Henry's. All it took was for me to say "do you remember that day.." for them to be back there with me. A quick laugh and then a quiet condolence for why we three were here. We couldn't visit long, because too quickly, we were called into the service. I had hoped to have time to change into my dark suit, because I had arrived at the visitation in a sport-coat, a chamois shirt, clean jeans, new boots and my most sacred piece of Indian art, a Zuni sun god bolo tie (a small piece, made with obsidian, turquoise and mother-of-pearl.) I looked well-dressed by Southwestern standards. But, to many of these small-town folks, I likely looked like I was fresh off the all-night train from New Orleans.

No matter. I was escorted in with the other honorary pall-bearers, men who included the retired commander of the Mississippi National Guard, General Shields Sims and others from a society I scarcely know. I was bracketed by two classmates, one of whom joked quietly about the time (when we were 18) that Bill and I had invited a roving band of leather-clad bikers to hide their Harleys in his basement and spend the night stretched out on Miz Lilla's formal living room rug, an unexpected part of their thunderous herd's ride to California. (Lordy, the things we are still remembered for. That is certainly another story, for another place and time.)

The funeral – The funeral hall filled quickly for Miz Lilla's service. Since I was with the honor guard up front, we stood to watch everyone else file in, starting with the family. Miz Lilla's family filled two full pews, with children, great- and great-great-grandchildren, cousins and third cousins. And all the Black workers, and their descendants, who joined us there that day. Perhaps 50 people in that extended family, seated warmly there together, Bill and Willie and Henry and the rest. All more closely related to Miz Lilla than me, her second son.

Two ministers spoke, mainly reading passages from scripture and from Christian Science writings (Miz Lilla's own religion.) A massive and delicate vase of flowers framed the altar, so heavy that it swayed a little back and forth every time the ministers moved. (My classmate, Eddie, and I whispered our furtive plans for a tandem mad-dash rescue in case that vase decided to take a nose-dive.) The Methodist minister made reference to those segments of my remembrance that were published in the paper (for which I am thankful). But beyond that, the preachers hewed close to scripture. It gave all of us a chance to sit and think about Miz Lilla, in the presence of two very different pictures of her up there on the altar.

The closest one, the one up front beside the ash-filled urn, was a colorful photograph of Miz Lilla in her prime, taken perhaps in her 70s, wrapped in full fall foliage with her Zuni sun god smile. The other, a portrait, was much larger and so recessed behind the altar, wrapped around with flowers. That portrait, of Miz Lilla back when she was young Miss Lilla, was one that, at first, I thought I'd never seen. But then I realized that it had always been in Bill's father's (Mr. Bill's) home office all along. Now, like others, I was really looking at that painting for the first time.

That portrait of Miss Lilla is of a woman in her mid 20s, a woman just betrothed to marry, somewhat older than the norm. A woman who did not know that what was left of her life from that soft portrait's time ‘til now would be poured with equal measure into two bowls – one bowl that, for almost 35 years, would be her married life; and the other 35 year bowl that would hold all the rest. None of that was in her face, but the graceful force to face all things that come was there, even then. I had just noticed all of that, and I'm grateful now I did.

When I returned home, I e-mailed Bill for a copy of that portrait and he sent it to me. If any of you who have read this far would like to see that portrait, send me a message and I'll gladly send it to you. I told Bill that if I ever wrote a poem about Miz Lilla, that portrait has inspired the words: "Miss Lilla's face fulfilled the form with which the masks of gods were made."

Friendship cemetery – Miz Lilla's ashes were buried after the service at Friendship Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in north-east Mississippi. I spoke with a local judge (a few years ahead of me in school) who told me that, at first, our hometown had been picked to be a Confederate fortification, and that battlements had even been built on the northeast side of town. But Shiloh, and all the carnage that flowed downhill from there, had turned our hometown into a hospital city, a place where, at first, Confederates and then all sides were treated for their wounds and, too often, buried. Thus, my hometown was spared the bombardments and other ravages of war. As a result, all its magnificent mansions still remain, some with wood floors still stained with that war's blood. Instead of our town being bombarded, it was spared as necessary for the survival of all sides. Because of that, Friendship Cemetery contains a large section of Union as well as Confederate dead. The flowered ceremonial remembrances of all those graves in the immediate post-war years helped cement this place's claim (among several) as the birthplace of Memorial Day. It was a fitting place for Miz Lilla's ashes. I fit myself there for the moment, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Willie and Henry one last time, to say our "amens" together to the benediction, and then to shake hands and hold them together, briefly, in our respectful embrace.

Miz Lilla's forebear smiles down at me (for the very first time) – The last stage of the day, the post-funeral gathering and meal, took place in the family home, Franklin Square. Wood fires were smoldering in the grand fireplaces at both ends of the house. (I should have taken a moment to do them right, to get them burning. But that was not my place.) Another chance to mix and mingle, to say "hello" to more old schoolmates and their mothers. I brought a case of 24 small jars of blueberry jam and placed it in a side room for everyone to share. I was already getting antsy about getting back on the road to my deep hollow home (with a cold night ahead requiring hot wood-fires back up there.) Bill was busy greeting the steady stream of visitors, and so I filled a plate with Virginia ham, biscuits and relish and settled in an easy chair in the formal living room.

Like so many antebellum homes, Miz Lilla's mansion is a portrait gallery of those that have come before. Some of the faces are unique enough that I remembered them in passing. But the portrait off in the corner, above the piano and facing the southern fireplace, was one I had not paid much attention to before. Today, I could not have helped but notice her -- to have broken from her loving gaze would have been rude. That forebear of Miz Lilla's, dressed in her Quaker head-garb, beamed a warm and thankful smile at me and wouldn't let me look away. Because I am a child of the South (and also of the Southwest), I know for a fact that the magical sometimes does become real. If only for a moment, if only in my mind. This was not the first time I've seen a smile like that from somewhere I don't yet know, but it is the most recent. In future talks with Bill, I look forward to getting to know just who that radiant woman is (you'd know why it's hard for me to say "was" if you had just seen that smile ...).

Epilogue: messages I've received -- In the week since Miz Lilla's death and the circulation of my remembrance, I've heard from lots of you (thanks kindly), and many others besides. Some of you have shared with me your own personal stories of the Miz Lillas in your lives, which reminds me how much many of us have been deeply blessed by good example. I've even heard that Miz Lilla's real-life family is circulating the remembrance among themselves. For all of that, I am grateful. But what I am most thankful for is the chance to re-engage my friendship with Bill, to re-establish a foothold in the land of my own people's birth. We'll just have to wait and see what comes. .

There are two email messages I've received from Bill this week that serve a fitting place to stop this message to you now, and to get back to work in the quiet foothills here, now that my ridge-top rows have begun to thaw (I hope.) I asked Bill for more information about Willie and Henry's family and he wrote me back as follows:

"Henry Sanders is the oldest of the three brothers who worked for us. Mark, the handsome and sweet younger brother with the beard, has a degree in education from MVSU and teaches math at West Lowndes Middle School. (Our family helped any of our workers' families who wished to attend college.) All of Willie's (middle brother) children have higher degrees of some sort - one is an industrial engineer, one is a nurse etc. I can't remember all of their family, but their parents had 7 children.

"The sweet old butler you wrote about was John Robinson, a man I loved very much.. He was a gentle, thoughtful soul. He was my grandfather's chauffeur. Let me tell you about another wonderful man, Ike Brown, who used to take me fishing on Moore's creek, not too far from our house. Ike gave me a silver dollar when I was a young boy (that I still have in my dresser). Imagine what a financial sacrifice that must have been for him in the 50s.

"I was really blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life, and I miss them all. Stella, who was part American Indian, basically raised Merrill and me, had a family of her own to raise, and yet was always available for us, at no matter what sacrifice she had to make of her own, sometimes having to walk home alone at night. Both of her sons grew up to be minor league professional baseball players in California.

"Nostalgia and sadness. I love you, man".

Then, at 5:00 am yesterday morning, I received this email note from Bill about his daughter Julia:

"Apparently Julia has now realized that Mother's gone. Lynne found her this morning sitting in a chair across the room from Mom's bed, crying. Julia had frequently gone to Mom's room early in the morning to lay in bed with her before she had to go to school. We think she understood what was going on last Tuesday night, because when she went up to visit Mom before bedtime, she sat in the same chair across the room and did not get into bed with Mom, as per her normal routine. It was tough for Julia when Mom became unable to walk with her and play the piano for her. Julia loved to dance in the formal living room when Mom played."

Now it's time to move on, all of us. Thanks, wherever you are, for sharing this memory of some parts of the past that I'm made of (at least the magnolia-scented parts). If you'd like to receive the portrait of Miss Lilla as a young woman, please email me back and it will be yours.

Until the next time, just do the next right thing. For me, there is always the Garden.

Bernie

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