(Day 18)
“Where we doin’k?” My youngest brother asks from the back
seat. I wait for Mom to answer. She says nothing, but just keeps
driving. Three year old Cole had been
asking that question almost every morning for days. It was cute.
We would answer, and those sky blue eyes would peer through the window
from his car seat looking for whatever the place was that we told him we were
going. His face flushed with excitement
and anticipation, he would ask, search, and respond with, “Tan’t see it…,” and
we would laugh.
I think he kept up with the question
day after day because he liked that we laughed.
Now that our Suburban only contains himself, Mom, and me, I think he’s
confused.
I’m sure he’s wondering why our
brothers, Gus and Walker, were just dropped off at friends’ houses, yet he and
I had to get back into the Chevy and on the road again. It’s no doubt obvious even to a three year
old that we’re not embarking on a quick trip to the mall. A couple hours ago, he had his older brothers
sitting with him bright and early in the morning with packed bags and
snack-food for our breakfast just like most mornings for the last two
weeks. Well, here we are still trekking
down the highway, but it all seems…different.
The atmosphere and the conversation is
nothing like it has been for so long.
It’s now dry. It’s quiet. It’s gloomy, despite the clear June sky
stretching like a canopy over the California scenery outside the car. I guess we’re still in shock. Cole no doubt remembers the joy from the
mountain top and is expecting it to continue, or at least hoping. I mean, how could he possibly know, not to
mention, understand, what’s just occurred in the family that has turned our
world upside down? No, not ours; the
world of our loved ones has just been torn to pieces.
We’re not in the spirals of their
tornado. Heading directly into the
storm, we can feel the furious wind of their devastation. In only a couple of days, we’ve helplessly
watched them spin around inside of it, yet from a somewhat safe distance. Every now and then some object that’s rapidly
flying through the whorls comes whizzing at us like a wild slap in the
face. Still, “helpless” does not fully
describe our inability to save all those who are trapped inside.
Cole probably thinks that asking his
question will rekindle that joy from our memorable vacation and get us laughing
again, but there is no answer from Mom.
Maybe she doesn’t hear him. Maybe she’s just lost in thought. Grandma isn’t here to answer, and that’s who
usually did the answering to Cole’s question.
Now, I’m the one sitting in her spot, in the front passenger seat, and
he’s looking to me for an answer. So I
give him one.
“Fresno. We’re going to Fresno.”
“Huh? What?”
My response yanks Mom from her thoughts.
There’s a look of confusion on her face as if she herself has forgotten
the mission of the day.
“Cole asked where we are going,” I gently explain to her.
“Oh. I guess I didn’t hear
him,” and she’s gone again.
This time, Cole doesn’t look outside. He doesn’t search for the place I told
him. Instead, he watches us very closely
trying to figure things out. I can tell
he’s confused. Things are no longer as
they were a few days ago. Even I’m
trying to figure out things that are no longer as they were. Of course, I know how it all changed…I just don’t understand why. There are a lot of
things that I don’t understand why about.
I look back at Cole with a reassuring
smile. Then I lean my head against the
window and think back to how our journey began.
Mom and Grandma planned our trip for
months. I never understood why we did it. I certainly didn’t want to go. Two and a half weeks of being cooped up with
five other people, driving from hotel to hotel, was not my idea of a vacation. Why
couldn’t I have just stayed home with Dad?
It’s not like I’m too young to stay home while he’s at work. We’ve only been living in Tracy, California
for a little over six months, but I’ve made some friends. I would’ve loved to just hang out with Crissy
every day. What’s so wrong with
that? I mean, sure, Crissy and I do have other friends that we would have
wanted to hang out with, and yes,
they do have their licenses and can drive us around, but we wouldn’t have done
anything bad. We’re just normal teenagers who can be totally
trusted, right?
I look at Mom and wonder if things
will ever be normal again.
I suppose staying home with Dad
wouldn’t have changed anything. What’s
the point? Why two women chose to take
four kids on a cross country road trip is not even the question at hand, so
there’s no reason to complain about it in my head right now. Cole just wants to know what all the sadness
is about, and the real question is why did she have to die? I doubt there’s even an answer to that.
If I hadn’t gone on that trip, what would
I have been doing when I got the news?
Would Mom actually have told me over the phone, or waited until we were
face to face?
I would’ve hated not being with my
mother when I found out. I don’t think
Crissy would have done me much good.
Dad’s pretty quiet when he gets bad news. And news doesn’t get any worse than this.
I guess it was best that I was with them…Mom and Grandma.
If I had stayed home, wouldn’t I
still be on the road right now heading down highway 5 to that big creepy town
of Fresno with the same eerie feeling inside my gut? Of course I would…
“Can
you please call Grandma?” Mom interrupts
my inner tirade. “Tell her we dropped
off the boys in Livermore and we’re just passing Tracy.” Without taking her eyes off the road, she
hands me her cell phone.
Livermore has all of our family and
friends. Livermore has four generations
of both sides of my family. Livermore is
where Mom, Dad and I were born. I was
one of the last to be born at the only hospital in that rodeo town 40 miles east
of San Francisco. Not long after that glorious
day I entered the world they shut down the maternity section. Meaning my brothers were born outside of
Livermore, but they still came home to Livermore. Well, Gus spent his first three weeks of life
in Brentwood while we waited for our first house to be ready to move in, but
what does he know, right?
Tracy is even further east of San
Fran, on the other side of a tiny summit we call “The Altamont”, and just west
of hwy 5 which runs north and south all the way from the Canadian border to
Mexico.
I glance outside at familiar
landmarks as we go along the highway flying past our town. I see some windmills, the Safeway warehouse,
and of course the sign for Corral Hollow Rd exit which runs east to west from
one side of Tracy to the other. I wonder
what jobsite my dad will be working at today.
My dad’s an electrician and pretty
handy in most areas of construction. Thanks to his skill and plenty of help from
family and friends, my parents, Matt and Delanie MacEanraig, were able to fix
up their fixer upper in Livermore. No
matter how much they added on to that house, they couldn’t keep up with the
additions to the family. I would’ve been
content being the perfect family of four in our quaint little home. But after Walker and Cole came along, we were
busting out at the seams. It was time to
move.
I love our new house. I just wish it was in Livermore, not Tracy.
We left Tracy early this morning heading due west. We
drove over The Altamont to bring Gus and Walker to Livermore where they will
stay for a couple of days. Then Mom, Cole and I drove east back over
The Altamont. We’re now continuing south. In about an
hour or so, we’ll head east for a bit then make another southbound connection
taking us to Fresno where most of Mom’s mom’s extended family
lives. I’ve been there so many times I know this route like the back
of my hand.
Dad and Red are joining us tomorrow since they both had to work
today. Red is what we call Grandpa. He’s always been
called Red. Grandma's already there. She’s been at her
sister’s, Aunt Joanne’s, house since Wednesday.
It was the end of our ridiculous road trip that had taken us to
Arkansas and back, and our last stop before heading home
yesterday. My great aunt, as well as plenty of other family members,
live smack dab in the middle of California. It’s a miserably hot and
fairly large city. We left Nevada Wednesday morning, drove to
Fresno, stayed one night, left my grandma there, and finished up our
journey. Now it’s Friday. And here we are going back to
Fresno! And I can’t imagine how confused Cole is.
I take Mom’s phone and scroll down her
recent calls to find the number and call Grandma’s cell phone, but there’s no answer.
“Try calling Aunt
JoAnne. She’s in my contacts.”
I call the house of my great Aunt
JoAnne, and lo and behold, Grandma answers.
It’s about 9 in the morning. She
says that we should’ve left earlier, and we might not make it before they leave
the house for the viewing.
Holy cow! Does she know how hard it is to get out of
the house with three little boys? She
should know! She’s been traveling with
us for over two weeks! She knows we only
went home to unload, regroup, and head back.
We spent most of the two hour drive yesterday on the phone trying to
make arrangements for the two older boys for today and tomorrow. We had to unpack, do laundry, a little
grocery shopping, and pack up again. I
think Mom and I did just fine leaving by 7 o’clock this morning. And we couldn’t just toss the boys out of a
moving car, even if I was tempted to. We
made two stops, and of course had to visit for a minute or two since everyone wants to know how we’re doing
in the midst of our family crisis.
I ask what time the viewing is, and
Grandma thinks it’s around noon. Then
she sighs a sigh of annoyance.
“Hold on. Let me ask JoAnne.” I hear her speaking to her sister, “JoAnne. Letti’s on the phone. She and Delanie won’t make it to Fresno for
at least a couple of hours. And they
still have to check-in to the hotel.
Aren’t we leaving for the viewing around that time?”
“Ummm no, I don’t think
so…” My aunt’s voice echoes in the
background. I can picture them in the
kitchen probably doing breakfast dishes.
“Oh…well, I thought Harry
said it was at noon, and I’m sure we want to get there early.”
Grandma sounds as if she’s trying to keep her grieving sister on track.
Grandma sounds as if she’s trying to keep her grieving sister on track.
“No, Gloria. Harry said Tiff’s going be here at noon. The viewing isn’t till at least 2…I think. I’m sure they’ll get here in plenty of time.” Aunt JoAnne doesn’t sound like herself, but
who could blame her?
Grandma gets back on the phone and
tells me what I already heard. I say good
bye and put the phone in Mom’s purse.
Then I repeat the whole conversation to her.
“Mom,
doesn’t ‘viewing’ mean they’re actually going to show the body?”
“Usually…but
I can’t imagine that they would.” She
answers me after glancing at Cole in her rear view mirror. I look back at his innocent face and think how
to ask a difficult question.
“How
many days did it take for them to find her?”
It comes out in a whisper.
“I don’t know, Letti. I don’t think they know exactly when she died
and how long her body was…well, you know…decaying.” It seems difficult for Mom to get the last
word out. I wonder if it’s because she’s
worried about me or that she just can’t stand the thought of saying it out
loud. “No,” she says shaking her head, “it
just doesn’t make sense that they would actually show the body.”
Five months ago, I went to my first
viewing. It was my great grandpa, my
mom’s dad’s dad. I didn’t want to look,
but I knew I had to. I knew it was
expected. At my age, I have to be mature
about these things. I didn’t want to,
but I did. My brothers didn’t have to,
but they did anyway. My parents didn’t
sit us down and discuss it ahead of time.
They didn’t do anything to emphasize it in our minds. Walking into the chapel with us four kids following
behind, Mom and Dad showed us where we were going to sit then told my brothers
that they could either sit down and wait for us or follow us and sit down
after. “After what” was not
explained. Our parents just left it at
that and started walking up to the casket.
The boys chose to follow with all three of them intensely observing
every move. Mom and Dad just let us
experience it. Leading by example, they
showed us that it’s normal to walk up to an open casket, stare at a dead body,
and speak to it saying, “I love you, Papa.”
I really miss him.
My Papa was handsome. No, not just handsome. He was hot! All the close family members got to bring
home from his funeral a framed picture of Papa in his sailor uniform when he
was around 20 years old. We have ours on
the counter in the upstairs hallway. I
see it every time I come out of my room; I’m so proud of GG, my great grandma,
who landed such a hunk!
He was a large man. Not fat, but muscular. Hardly having more than an 8th
grade education, Papa was a self-taught mechanic from Henrietta, Oklahoma who
moved to Livermore with his young family in 1950. I can still see him in his coveralls.
I remember a video from our camcorder
of my adorable little toddler self trying to laugh the way he laughed. It was a short and loud “HA!” I did a good job copying that sound for a 1
year old. There’s another one of me a
little older sitting in his old Dodge truck playing on the CB saying, “Hello
Roger,” to whoever would listen to me. I
love that truck. I’m hoping I’ll get it
when I get my license. He told me I could
have it someday.
I have a lot of memories of Papa.
It was his death that gave my grandma
the idea for our road trip. While
talking to family members about boring genealogy stuff, she found out about a
family reunion in Arkansas for a branch of the Walker family, cousins to
Papa. That’s when she brought up the
idea to Mom about the two of them taking us kids there for a vacation.
My mom loves long driving trips. It’s the only time she’s allowed to tie up
all of her kids and block out the noise without being accused of child
abuse. On the other hand, Dad hates them. Since he’s not home all day with four kids,
he can’t appreciate the joy of such an experience.
When Grandma offered to cover half
the expenses of gas, food and hotel, she roped Mom into the idea. They thought it would give Dad time to work
on landscaping our front yard while we were gone without kids running around
and getting in his way, as well as not being nagged by Mom to come inside for
dinner. Win, win!
We drove over 2,000 miles, met up
with Great-great Aunt Lucy and her daughter, Mabel. Then the 8 of us went to a family reunion of
3rd and 4th cousins we’d never even seen before. How can there be a reunion if there was never
a union to begin with? It was about 25
people…25 people…at a park for about an hour and a half! An hour and a half! All of that planning and travel for an hour
and a half at a park with 17 strangers? It
was a good thing they added plenty of other sightseeing stops along the way or
else that trip would have really been insane!
Two and a half weeks ago, four days
after I finished up my freshman year of high school, I groggily climbed out of
my comfortable futon bed. With my
blanket and pillow under my arms, I climbed into the already loaded Suburban,
and we pulled away from our newly built home for the first leg of the
trip. We would end up in Nevada that
evening. A hotel room waited for us in
the town of Laughlin. We were just
beginning our adventure…our adventure that I didn’t want to take, and it was
before the event changed everything.
Written by Amie N. Spruiell
Amie Spruiell After the Event © 2016
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