Epic

It's 5:30. I lock the front door, turn off the lights, and walk to the back and get in my car to go home. He's gone with the truck and won't be home until late, so I'm taking her out for a walk. When I walk in the back door, she greets me and runs to the front door and looks expectantly over her shoulder at me. "Yes, hon, we're going for a walk!"

I put my sweatshirt on and tie the hood. It's gotten a little cooler. Only an hour until the sun sets. She runs to the old black pickup. I open the door for her and she jumps in and takes up her station at the passenger side window that is always left halfway down for her. It's a bit of a struggle since my knee surgery, but I finally get the clutch pressed down, lower the steering wheel, start the engine, and we are off.

It hurts to keep shifting, so I keep the speed down so we can stay in second. All the way north of town, she hangs her head out the window, her long ears streaming back. I always park at the bottom of the biggest hill. If it has rained, there are puddles that she absolutely must walk through, or so it seems.

We begin walking down the winding path, heading east to another of the entrances to the cemetery. I start off across the grass so that I can walk by my husband's little Aunt Lillian Floy's grave. She has been gone over 100 years. I like to say hello to her. when I reach the far eastern edge I turn south and walk down the first hill. The road turns west at the bottom of that hill.

All this time she has been running and galloping and sniffing at anything remotely like a squirrel or a gopher. There are corn fields on three sides and she sometimes disappears into the stalks, always running and then stopping to sniff at whatever "messages" she finds in the grass. Halfway across the road again turns south for a bit before turning west again. I read the tombstones as I pass. So many names that are familiar. Some of people I knew or heard my parents talk about. I had 6 aunts and 8 uncles and they were all married. Most of them are buried here as well as all of our parents and grandparents and our little Baby Grace.

Some stones are almost unreadable... time has almost erased the names. Some are quite stately and ornate. My favorites when I was a child are the ones that look to be a cylinder lying on its side. I pretended they were horses and I liked to ride them. Many times I would ride my blue bike with the big fat tires from our house on Main Street all the way out to the cemetery all by myself. I would bring along something to eat in a paper bag and a book to read.

On the far west side is the Conflux of Crosses which are white metal crosses in concentric arcs with the names of veterans who have died on them. They curve around a stone platform with a stone bench along the back and a stone podium in the front, all made from native large rocks cemented together. I always wanted to be married there on the hill on that platform. I wanted to be driven to the cemetery in a horse and carriage. But my mother said no, what if it rains? And, besides, that's too depressing, she said. It was my dream, but I gave it up. It turned out she was right because it did rain on my wedding day.

Some people have put granite or marble benches in place of tombstones. My parents' is made of green marble. I picked it out. I also picked those vases on both sides set into the concrete base so that they can be upended and disappear when not being used. There is a big green metal urn between my grandparents' and my great-grandparent's graves. Every year for the past twenty years since my mother died, someone has filled it with red geraniums. I don't know who. I asked everyone and they all deny it.

Just before I climb the last big hill, there is a spot where the tombstones are in a half circle and there is a bench that I like to sit on to rest. She likes to roll in the grass. She makes it look like so much fun! She rolls from side to side, her tongue hanging out... wriggling and contorting her body. And finally, she jumps up and comes over to see if I'm ready for the last leg. So I join her up the hill. She flies to the summit and disappears from sight while I make my way much slower.

When I reach the top, I am at the Conflux and I always search for the one with my father's name on it. And then I am starting down the hill past my husband's grandparents' graves and past the site of our graves. She is waiting for me by the little black pickup. I think she wonders why I can never keep up with her! I open the door for her to jump back in and we are on our way.

And just in time because the sun has just slipped below the horizon. We roll around the corner and all the way into town, she again enjoys the wind in her face. Watching her run and gallop and roll around is such a joyful thing to behold. I am smiling as I breathe deeply of the good Iowa earth. If this could only go on forever, I would be totally happy the rest of my days.