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My Father's Tree
I have no idea how I happened to find him. I'd
never been there before, I just knew I would. I
didn't even know what I looking for. Wherever he
was though, I was sure he hadn't moved for
forty-eight years. I didn't even know the name of
the cemetery. Well, actually, I thought I knew at
least that much.
He had been buried in the Detroit, Michigan
Masonic cemetery in 1949. Problem was, as I found
out, the Masonic cemetery was sold to a private
concern many years ago. Somehow, it seems a
ludicrous and heretic act to sell a cemetery to
anyone, but then it is after all, America.
I had been called from my home in San Francisco
to attend an all day meeting on Saturday in Detroit
and was ticketed to return home late Sunday
afternoon. I decided this was something I had to
do. It never occurred to me that there would be no
personnel working there on Sunday to help someone
find a burial site which, of course, turned out to
be the case. Fortunately, after a half dozen phone
calls I was able to find a man at a funeral home
that remembered the Masonic facility and knew to
whom it had been sold and where I could find it.
I drove around the perfectly manicured drive
reading headstones as I went. I had arrived around
10:00 am and was the only one there which, for some
unknown reason, I was very grateful for. The
Detroit Red Wings had just won the Stanley Cup the
night before and the town went mad, and I assumed
that one should not expect visitations to the
dearly departed in times of such momentous cultural
importance.
I was just ten years old when he died and my
family moved away from Detroit less than a year
later. This was the first occasion I had found to
be in Detroit in all those years. I drove my rental
Plymouth around for almost twenty minutes. I got
out once to get a feel for the place and noted that
the earliest stones in that particular area were
dated from 1965 to present. I figured I needed to
find an older area and returned to the
Plymouth.
I hadn't asked for a Plymouth at the rental
agency but as I got in I recalled that my father
had loved Plymouths. During my young life, until he
died, we had owned two of these things. A black
1941 and a gray 1946. I recalled that the 1946 was
purchased new for $695. I really have no idea why I
remembered that.
Well, I drove around for another ten minutes or
so and suddenly just stopped along the edge of the
gravel road. The monument stones were all shiny and
well maintained and no part of the park looked
older than any other. I just had a feeling. I
walked to the passenger side of the Plymouth, up a
slight incline about ten yards and stopped. There
he was. A simple, flat brass plaque in the ground.
It was covered with ingrown grass except for his
first and middle names. I sat down and began to
pull the tightly woven grass from the surface and
exposed the full twelve inch by eighteen inch
plate. Forty-eight years of patina had given a
beautiful warmth to the simple finality of the
metal marker. I noticed I was glad that it was not
a large marble stone that might still look new and
fresh.
I spoke to him for a while, as most people speak
to the memory of a lost loved one. I suddenly
realized that this man, this enigma to a ten
year-old boy, had been gone a year less than he had
lived. I cried as much for his loss as I did for
the waste. I do remember a few things about him. He
was a good man. He loved his wife, his two
children, his job, his country, his friends, his
fishing. His passion was for life itself not the
things in it. The summer he died I was spending the
time at his sisters farm in Indiana. I did not get
to go to his funeral to say goodby. By the time I
returned home, mother, doing what she thought best,
had removed all memory of him. I never saw her cry
although she loved him more than life itself, and
although a beautiful woman and only thirty-eight
herself at the time, she never even considered
dating another man for the rest of her life. It
took me half a lifetime to learn to celebrate the
grief of his loss but eventually I did. Over those
years I had gotten to know him pretty well. Some of
that knowing was experience, some stories from
others, a lot was fantasy but it didn't really
matter. I had my story and that was that.
I miss my father most, of course, around Fathers
Day. At some level I always miss my father, yet
because of this visit, it will now be different
than it has ever been. There is a tree next to his
grave that could not have been more than a seedling
when they first met. The tree has given him shade
which I am sure he would have enjoyed as no one
else could. Somehow, I am also sure, he has
nourished that tree in return. I wished him Happy
Fathers Day and talked to him about his
grandchildren and all kinds of things that I
thought he might like to know.
And I showed him the new Plymouth, but I didn't
tell him it cost $20,000 now.
So, maybe in another time/space/life I'll see
him again, right there, where somehow I knew he
would be. A little brass plaque in the ground,
between the marble monoliths of Bowers,
Chappin/Welsh and Cook, McIntosh, Anderson and
Guy...guarding his tree.
© 2008, Kenneth F.
Byers
Other Transition Issues,
Books
* * *
A permanent state of transition is man's most
noble condition. - Juan Ramon Jimenez
Ken Byers
holds a Ph.D. in psychology with an emphasis in
Men's Studies, one of the few ever awarded in the
U.S. Ken is a full time Certified Professional Life
Coach specializing in working with men in any form
of transition and an instructor of design at San
Francisco State University.
His books, "Man
In Transition" and
"Who
Was That Masked man
Anyway" are widely
acknowledged as primers for men seeking deeper
knowledge of creating awareness and understanding
of the masculine way. More information on Ken, his
work and/or subscription information to the weekly
"Spirit Coach" newsletter which deals with elements
of the human spirit in short commentary, check the
box at www.etropolis.com/coachken/
or www.etropolis.com/coachken/what.htm
or www.etropolis.com/coachken/speak.htm
or E-Mail
You are welcome to share any of Ken's columns with
anyone without fee from or to him but please credit
to the author. Ken can be reached at:
415.239.6929.
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