Elaine and I both have family and roots in Iowa, so we envision many road trips to that fair state in our future. We hope to build many fond memories for Owen of trips to his grandparent's house, corn on the cob, summers swimming in the pond, and winters skating on it.
Last week we took Owen on his first road trip to Iowa, though the circumstances of this first foray into the great Midwest were less than ideal. On Saturday, November 5th, my Grandfather passed away at the age of 95.
We had thought our first trip to Iowa would be next summer for Owen's baptism. When we heard Grandpa's health was failing, we moved up out visit to just after Christmas so we could introduce Owen to his Great Grandfather. Once Grandpa was put in hospice care and Dad headed out to Iowa, we decided to drive out to Iowa that weekend and spend the week in Iowa letting Owen meet the family and hopefully giving grandpa a chance to meet him. Sadly, on Saturday morning, around 5 am, while we were packing up the car and getting ready to hit the road my phone rang. I knew before I answered, it was Dad calling to tell me that Grandpa had passed. Our trip would still involve many introductions, but our purpose was now to say farewell.
All of our travel adventures will have to wait for another post, for now I want to fast forward to Wednesday morning, November 8th. Sitting in the Hickory Grove Friends Meetinghouse, across a dusty gravel road from the cemetery where Fawcetts have been buried since the days of my Great Great Grandfather, the silence of my Grandfather's Quaker funeral was broken by the cries of my son. The spirit had moved him to remind us of the beginning of the cycle of life as we sat an mourned the end. After he had reminded us for a while, and was more interested in continuing to remind us than focusing on his bottle, Elaine took him outside to calm him in the warm November air. As they left, I rose to speak:
When I was two years old, I sat in this Meetinghouse during my Great Grandmother Malissa Fawcett's funeral, and my parents gave me M&M's to calm me. My son is a bit too young for M&M's so hopefully a little fresh air will help him calm down. I don't remember that day, and I don't remember meeting my Great Grandmother, but I know the story, and many others besides, because the family kept her memory alive. Grandpa used to tell me how Malissa would say that she must have lived in the most interesting time to be alive. As a little girl living on the frontier, she would hide under the kitchen table during Indian raids, and yet she lived to see Man walk on the moon. I always loved hearing this story as a child, because it made me feel connected to the past and to this land, because this amazing woman who had seen so much, had also known me. Owen may not have met his Great Grandfather, but Floyd had known him and delighted at his birth. I hope Owen will always feel at home here in Iowa, and years from now after growing up with stories of his Great Grandfather, I know he'll be glad that he was here.
July 25, 1911 - November 4, 2006
Posts
1 comment:
The picture in this post was taken in 1996 in front of the balcksmith shop at the Herbert Hover National Historic Site, and it appeared on the cover of the West Branch Times after my grandfather died. Floyd's obituary can be read here, and the story that ran along with the picture can be read here.
Post a Comment