We said goodbye to George yesterday. His family and ours, a neighbor. Those of us who remain. He had survived most who would call him friend. It was a small group huddled under a canvas canopy against a threatening storm in the garden of the old ranch house.
My children, Bobby, Betty and Susan, her husband and two of my grandchildren. In many ways we were George’s family, more so than his two sisters and their husbands who live far away. He would spend a few weeks at Christmas time with Judy, the sister who lives closest. And she came to see him every week since June at the Veterans Hospital.
A veteran of the Korean War, he came to work for my husband, Mack, after being discharged from the Marine Corps. He was still weak and suffered from what was called shell shock in those days, better known now as post traumatic stress. He wasn’t able to do much work at first, but he loved all the animals and wound up taking care of our horses, dogs and barn cats for five decades. Those that are still with us miss him as much as we do.
Nobody knows when that cluster of strange cells began to grow in his brain. He had headaches but said it was just his sinus. Always strong and incredibly fit, his pace gradually slowed. But he had fewer horses to look after and spent more time planting roses and fruit trees, and tending the garden. “Just showin’ my age,” he would say. Then one morning he was suddenly worse, his speech slurred, his right arm dangled. Susan thought he was having a stroke and, against his protestations, had the local ambulance take him to hospital. A scan revealed what he could not.
For most of his seven months in the VA nursing facility he was cheerful, friendly, joining other veterans in therapy, social events and church services. On Sundays, he went to both Protestant worship and Catholic Mass. Kind of hedging his bets, he would have said. It was as if he was reliving the camaraderie of war. He was, after all, a marine. They gave him a red cap with a marine logo on it. There, in what we used to call the old soldiers home, he seemed to feel he belonged to something important.
And as his time grew short, they asked if he wanted a military funeral. He indicated that he did, but insisted his ashes be scattered in the mountains overlooking the only home he knew. After a little bureaucratic wrangling, it was decided he could have both.
And so my children arranged everything, as they had done before. First for their father and later for Bobby’s daughter. A simple remembrance in the garden George had tended for so many years.
Bobby’s friend, a local minister, read the poem, “Bury Me With Soldiers,” which, of course, we weren’t doing, but it sounded nice and George loved poetry. The color guard, Sgt. David Jones and Lance Cpl. Jeremy Chaulsett, stood at attention in their splendid uniforms. Betty said a short prayer for the repose of George’s soul.
folded the flag and gave it to the sisters.
Three shots were fired. Jones raised his bugle and flawlessly played Taps. Then Bobby, galloping his horse across the hillside above us, scattered the ashes into a gentle breeze. It was perfect.
We all went into the house for hot drinks, sandwiches, cookies and cake. George really loved cookies. Then Betty played a DVD her husband, Mark, had made for George, pictures of him caring for the horses, planting trees, herding the barn cats at feeding time. It was a glimpse of a life that might seem unremarkable to most, but meant so much to all of us.
As the color guard, the minister, the relatives all drove away, the storm clouds drifted westward, gray giving way to the soft peach of a setting sun. Small patches of intense blue opened between them. Stunning and dramatic, and yet strangely peaceful. The rain and snow they held would fall to earth another day.