Shadowlands: Thresshold Days

This weekend my brother and I took my Granddad up to the middle of nowhere North Georgia to visit his family's graves. He needed someone to drive him through the Atlanta traffic, he said, because Grandmom was not going to sit in a car with him. She really just has nerve issues with the traffic. It's cause she's depressed, he says. So we woke up gosh-awful early to accompany him on this trek. He pumped my gas, paid for our breakfast, and when we got lost at one point, told me to pull over while he asked some guy on his lawn mower for directions. I sat there shaking my head, laughing, and swatting flies. Lawnmower man gave him good directions (go down to the end of my road, take a left at this here intersection, once you pass that house there, that's Emma May's house, take a left and you can't miss the cemetery – most of my family's buried there too) and we arrived at a little sunlit graveyard off an old country road.

We scanned for last names. Found parents. Cousins. Grandparents.

“That's your dad?”

“Yeah, he died of consumption when I was six. I don't remember much, but I remember him reciting The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want...He maketh me lie down in green pastures...He knew he was dying though we didn't.” Granddad pulled out his handkerchief and unashamedly wiped his eyes.

We walked on. Bees swarmed out of a hole in the ground in front of a grave marker. Miniature Confederate flags marked some ancient graves. Simple stones marked the unnamed. Names. Dates. Stories. Lives. Forgotten by most, but remembered and told that day by my Granddad who, with misty eyes, hunched over illmarked graves. We made a day of it and celebrated fleeting life with a trip to the Varsity...which at least subtracted a day from each of ours.

Peace, my sweets.