July 10th, 2002 - 6.05 pm
I've got a couple of entries to write. I've just gotten back from a funeral in Osceola, Nebraska where my granddad and his brothers grew up. Osceola is a tiny town that time hasn't touched. It's like any other small mid-western town. Kids in bathing suits ride their bikes down the middle of the street, mothers in big hats and sundresses follow, pushing baby strollers. The houses are tired, peeling paint, sagging porches, but where you'd expect it to look dismal, it looks like history. Like sitting on the porch, chipping paint, drinking Coke out of a glass bottle, because it's too hot to do ANYTHING else, while people walk slowly by chatting because everybody knows everybody else. Like people have been sitting on that porch, drinking Coke and chipping at the paint for the past 50 years.
My granddad's brother, Robert L. Mills died. They found cancer in him about a month ago, and he died July 1st. He left behind friends, a second wife, three of the greatest daughters in the world, seven grandchildren, three brothers, friends, colleuges, admirers. He left behind an entire town.
My uncle Bob helped build a golf course, a hospital, a library in Osceola. He practiced law, he fought in World War II. His daughters, Nan, Barb and Sally grew up in Osceola, tourturing my father when he would visit during the summers. Nan is a chemistry prof at a little college in Texas, Barb is an engineer, she works for the government, Sal is a dermatologist. All three are strong, competant, women working in pretty typically male-dominated fields, but all three also have a very down-home mindset. Nan whipped up a coffee cake for breakfast, I remember Barb making her children's clothes when we were growing up, they are women who are proud to be women. They don't get caught up in defying gender roles they just live their lives. They are loving, funny, supportive, creative women raising loving, supportive, creative children.
I was really worried about how I'd handle this funeral. I haven't been to one since Tia's. But this, this was so different. Of course there was hurt and people cried, and we missed Uncle Bob, but we also realized that he lived such a full life. It's never 'time' for someone to go, but every day, my great-uncle told someone that he was the luckiest man alive, that he couldn't think of anything else he'd ask for. Barb said she pictured her dad and mom (who passed away six(ish) years ago) sitting up at the cemetary like Emily Webb. There was the typical reception, then trip to the cemetary. So much of my family is there. It's a real sense of roots, as cheesy as that sounds.
After the cemetary, we all changed into our shorts and tee-shirts and sat around the back yard talking, laughing, telling stories. And oddly enough, it was really great.
I would never live in Nebraska, most especially Osceola, Nebraska. I loved this trip in a very Willa Cather sort of way, though. I loved sitting in Bob's kitchen, having breakfast with my family, I loved meandering down the road and seeing six people I knew.
Wow. That's all I have to say about that, for now.
Love,
Emily
