Last night Jeff and Karen took us to the Firefly Grill. We ate fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried grits, pulled pork, grilled chicken salad, tomato soup (with a tiny cheese sandwich floating in the center) and a crab cake, all finished with a slice of rich coconut cream pie drizzeled with caramel. We touched on family issues, some messy ones, but most importantly Jeffrey helped Matt understand the complex man who was his grandfather.

Today is our day of rest.

Written by Diane.

I believe our impossibly busy time has come to an end. We arrived in Evansville early and drove directly to the same dirt-cheap place my sister contracted for my mother’s cremation – Gelham Funeral Home run by a father and son and offering services way below scale. We filled out the necessary forms, chatted about family, and then both Stan and Matt helped plan the next phase – our journey to Kansas on Tuesday. In addition to helping us understand our expected costs, we learned that mini vans with bucket seats were big enough for a single coffin and three people, that Suburbans, though monstrous are too short, and that cargo vans seat only two. We haven’t yet decided how many of us are taking this trip, though my older brother no longer refers to me, the dreamer up of this plan, as his “psycho brother.” So, there will be a minimum of two but possibly four travelers.

After we returned to the Marriott, I called Carlson Funeral Home in Eldorado, Kansas, and talked to Lionell Butts. He didn’t immediately understand my plan, but once he understood that my father was already in a casket and that there would be no service at his place, he seemed to cotton to the idea. It appears that the costs in Kansas will be minimal and we’ll be driving my father to his grave. But then what? Lowering him into the ground ourselves? That part, at the moment, is unclear.

Diane and I fly to Evansville today, leaving this morning at 9 AM. Matthew joins us in the afternoon, and Brian tomorrow. Monday night we’ll have a similar memorial service for my father as we did for my mother at Patchwork Central . Mostly friends remembering.Wednesday, if all goes according to my plan, Diane and Peter and I will rent a truck and drive my father out to Latham, Kansas and bury him in his family cemetery.

I talked to Steve McCune, the man in charge of hiring the “grave digger,” and he informed me that lot B is owned by my great grandfather and that’s where Mack’s mother, grandfather, grandfather’s brother and someone else by the name of Jones is buried. After we inter my father there will still be three available spaces.If you want to make contributions in the name of Malcolm, please send them to Patchwork. I am thankful for all the phone calls yesterday. I didn’t have time to return many (any?), but I am grateful for the support. I plan on updating the blog as we move about the midwest.

 

I like that thought – rest in peace. I’m not sure who gets to rest now, but this morning at about 5:30 AM my father, Malcolm G Miller, died in his hospital bed with his son, Peter, by his side. Peter held his hand and whispered words of affection in Mack’s ear.

My father’s great passions were the stock market and hard work. Even at ninety-two he mowed his lawn and both his neighbors’ lawns. On Thanksgiving my father cleaned out his last gutter and sometime shortly before he entered the hospital he traded his last stock.

I’ve got nothing left. Anyone out there want to contribute something for the masses? Otherwise, I’ll post more spinning daisies and cat’s cozying up to warm fires.

One fine video of the behind-the-scenes rehearsal and performance of Schubert’s “The Trout.” (Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline Du Pré, Zubin Mehta and Pinchas Zukerman)

On my drive home after my last visit to my mother before she died, I drifted off the interstate at the New York, Massachusetts border and searched for a small town restaurant. I’d consumed my cooler food and I needed good eats and maybe some company. Since New Lebanon and Austerlitz, NY, were on opposite sides of the highway, I knew I’d find a white clapboard house with a Home Cooking sign in the window. I was wrong. But I did discover a commemorative plaque describing Edna St. Vincent Millay’s last home.

After my mother’s memorial service in July, I decided to stop again. Not for food, I knew there wasn’t any, but to see Edna’s place. I felt this connection between my mother and Edna. Both were strong, spirited, outspoken women. This time, with Diane’s mapquest help, I found Edna’s house, but for some unknown reason I couldn’t force myself by all the KEEP-OUT, NO TRESPASSING signs.

After I visited my father in December, I stopped again, and this time I walked right by those stupid signs. I made a little movie of her property, overlaying Edna reading “I Shall Forget You Presently.” The words don’t fit the film, but it was the best of the three audio poems I found.

Unfortunately, the movie is a bigger mishmash than my spinning daisy effort. I should have taken photographs.

Video

I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields

I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields,
In converse with sweet women long since dead;
And out of blossoms which that meadow yields
I wove a garland for your living head.
Danai, that was the vessel for a day
Of golden Jove, I saw, and at her side,
Whom Jove the Bull desired and bore away,
Europa stood, and the Swan’s featherless bride.
All these were mortal women, yet all these
Above the ground had had a god for guest;
Freely I walked beside them and at ease,
Addressing them, by them again addressed,
And marvelled nothing, for remembering you,
Wherefore I was among them well I knew.

On my drive home after my last visit to my mother before she died, I drifted off the interstate at the New York, Massachusetts border and searched for a small town restaurant. I’d consumed my cooler food and I needed good eats and maybe some company. Since New Lebanon and Austerlitz, NY, were on opposite sides of the highway, I knew I’d find a white clapboard house with a Home Cooking sign in the window. I was wrong. But I did discover a commemorative plaque describing Edna St. Vincent Millay’s last home.

After my mother’s memorial service in July, I decided to stop again. Not for food, I knew there wasn’t any, but to see Edna’s place. I felt this connection between my mother and Edna. Both were strong, spirited, outspoken women. This time, with Diane’s mapquest help, I found Edna’s house, but for some unknown reason I couldn’t force myself by all the KEEP-OUT, NO TRESPASSING signs.

After I visited my father in December, I stopped again, and this time I walked right by those stupid signs. I made a little movie of her property, overlaying Edna reading “I Shall Forget You Presently.” The words don’t fit the film, but it was the best of the three audio poems I found.

Unfortunately, the movie is a bigger mishmash than my spinning daisy effort. I should have taken photographs.

Video

I Dreamed I Moved Among The Elysian Fields

I dreamed I moved among the Elysian fields,
In converse with sweet women long since dead;
And out of blossoms which that meadow yields
I wove a garland for your living head.
Danai, that was the vessel for a day
Of golden Jove, I saw, and at her side,
Whom Jove the Bull desired and bore away,
Europa stood, and the Swan’s featherless bride.
All these were mortal women, yet all these
Above the ground had had a god for guest;
Freely I walked beside them and at ease,
Addressing them, by them again addressed,
And marvelled nothing, for remembering you,
Wherefore I was among them well I knew.

What do you do when your photos aren’t top notch? How about add grass and spinning daisies and animate the whole thing?

Watch the barn explode.

Diane, Matthew and Tulum

Diane, Matthew and Tulum