In the end, we didn’t give the details about Tom Edmunds’ memorial in the obituary. It didn’t go up on Facebook.  The park in West Fulton is small, concerns about Covid are still very real.  A little flyer was hung in the cafe and the post office.  The rest of the information was word of mouth.

I wonder if it was the right thing to do on Sunday afternoon.  Ula and I are down at the park, lining up folding chairs beneath the tent, setting up the buffet, making sure there is enough toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  

I want Tom’s family to feel the love of his community.  I want Tom’s spirit to have a glorious time, witnessing the memories and the joy he brought to this world.  A tiny part of me fears this won’t happen. — That no one will come except a few close friends…that we will stand around the grill with too many hamburgers, making polite chit chat about how “this was a lovely send-off,” and we’ll go home…And the wonder that was Tom Edmund’s life will go unacknowledged.

Because it would be so easy, in this culture, to overlook it.  Tom lived alone in a tiny, simple house.  He died alone in his sleep from the last of a series of seizures that had plagued him since he got a tick bite while working as a ranger about 15 years ago.

He had been a great ranger, popular with the locals, dedicated to his search and rescue efforts, fierce defender of the wilderness.

But one seizure in uniform, and his career was over. 

So he surrendered his gun, his badge, his esteemed position in society, and slipped into premature retirement.  In that chapter of his life, he did just what he’d always done.

He cleared secret paths in the woods for cross-country ski trails.  He hiked with his friends and family.  He went camping with Clay, his son.  He sat with me at the espresso bar and helped me map out canoe trips for my family.  He fixed my Mom’s porch railing, fell off one neighbor’s roof while fixing it, then as soon as he’d healed, agreed to help the next neighbor fix her roof. He came into the cafe each week, and never failed to leave without stopping at each table for a visit.  He mountain biked with his friends, built the bar at Green Wolf, then sat down there sipping beers and cheering for the local musicians, and sang in the jazz band.

It’s been six weeks since he died.  I miss him daily.  It feels surreal standing here in this park, where I grew up, setting out these chairs,  walking back up to the cafe to slice tomatoes and onions with Bob and the girls for the burgers we’ll be grilling later for the guests.  

When I went to school down in the valley, I didn’t think about someday setting up chairs for a memorial service, or slicing tomatoes and onions for burgers.  I thought non-stop about my career ….I’d become a writer, and a college professor.  I’d be famous for my words and lectures, of course.  This is how I would be known to the world.  This is how I would know myself.  I set upon a course to make that happen.  I spent a lot of years working to generate and promote, promote, promote, so that I’d be a success.  

But up here in the hills, I was a daughter and a neighbor, a slinger of hay bales, a maker of pies.  As I grew into adulthood, I became a mother, a wife, and a friend, a storyteller, the woman with a ready supply of coffee and hot soup, keeper of the kitchen table, host of the potlucks.  The career goal of becoming a famous writer melted into a daily engagement with words and story, a spiritual practice, rather than a professional one.  

And I’m thinking about that as I’m pondering Tom’s life.  He worked so hard to become a ranger.  He was so good at it.  

But life asked so much more of him.  

It asks so much more of all of us. 

Our culture tells us we should do one thing – we should aspire toward it, train for it, devote our lives to it…And (maybe) have a pleasant work-life balance on the journey.  I believe this is how we are taught to “fulfill our purpose.”

But I don’t think that’s the way it really goes.  Life asks us to climb up on rooftops, to find more space at the table, to spend more time listening than we think we have, to sing even if we aren’t professionals, to dance even if we look silly.  Life doesn’t care about exceptionality or fame.  It asks us to take our gifts and offer them up, and to do things we aren’t good at.  It asks us to stand up for what we think is right.  It asks us to stop worrying about getting credit and focus more on connection.  

And when we do, we stop having to be extraordinary successful individuals.  Instead, we are woven into the fabric of a place, and that place becomes extraordinary…A place where all feel welcome and valued and cared for.  And when we slip away, even if it’s before our time, the fabric we helped to weave holds strong.

Bob, the girls and I load the platters of buns and burger toppings into the car and take them down to the park.  The place is full now.  Eager hands help us unload, then more hands bring more food.  The buffet table has so much to offer, there isn’t room to hold it all.  The musicians fill the park with sound, the tent overflows with those who loved this man, and picnic blankets with clusters of friends and family festoon the rest of the grounds…No formal announcements, no social media posts were necessary…This is a crowd built by one person’s connection with the next, and the next and the next, here to celebrate a man who helped us to celebrate ourselves.  

So, in short, Tom Edmunds had a great send-off.  And his friends from the Jazz band made sure he got a chance to say goodbye to all of us.  I’m signing off today with a recoding they shared of Tom singing Hi-De-Ho.  As you listen, remember to sing, remember to dance, remember that, to be truly happy, be part of something that’s bigger than yourself.

 

The Hearth of Sap Bush Hollow podcast happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Peter Crownfield & Patti DeLang.

Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  If you’d like to help support my work, you can do so for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.