A Treasure Lost

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.

---Virginia Woolf

The past is but the past of a beginning.

---H. G. Wells

A funeral triggers painful but therapeutic retrospection

It was a very hot summer morning. The sun was already high in the sky. The grass man for Budde's Funeral Home was busy covering the freshly dug earth with worn mats of artificial grass. A canvas canopy was erected beside the open grave. Racks of flowers were set in place. Just in time. The procession of flagged funeral vehicles, led by the old Cadillac hearse, was already entering the cemetery. The roadway up from the entrance was a single trail of little used tire tracks with grass growing up the middle. At the north end of the cemetery the road turned to the right and made a great loop around the upper two-thirds of the burial plots to rejoin the single roadway that was both entrance and exit for the lower third. The hearse moved slowly up the gentle hill and around the loop. At the urging of the grass man, the procession of flagged vehicles followed in close pursuit. When the last one was in the loop, the undertaker moved the hearse back onto the single lane and down the hill a few yards to the grave site. Some of the procession was able to follow. The rest of the vehicles were inadvertently trapped on the loop. People got out and walked to where the burial ceremony would take place.

Two dozen folding chairs inside the canopy were reserved for close family members. A few others were lucky enough to find standing room under the eaves. There was no other shade anyplace nearby, so the rest had to endure the boiling sun. They hoped the minister would show mercy and be brief. With the open location of the ceremony and their vehicles locked in, there was little chance for escape. It was a country preacher's dream come true.

Gregg was already starting to sweat. He always sweated at funerals whether it was cold or hot. His undershorts were starting to get wet and pinch in unhandy places. He tried to rearrange them to a more comfortable position by quick tugs he hoped no one would notice. After a long day at the office he had taken a red-eye flight east from Seattle to attend the funeral of his beloved Uncle Ray. He didn't get much sleep on the plane. An overbearing man who had too much to drink talked incessantly to the bored woman in the seat beside him. Then the cab driver that brought him from the airport turned out to be a talker. During the hour's ride he never paused for more than 30 seconds. Gregg arrived in town just in time to walk to the cemetery. He was still in the clothes he wore to work the day before. He had washed his face and brushed his teeth in the toilet on the plane. He wished he had been able to take a shower and shave.

The Funeral Director was seating the family members. In the front row, at the edge of the burial pit, he placed Uncle Ray's wife, his daughter, two sisters, a brother and the minister. Gregg was motioned into the chair behind the wife and daughter. This made him sweat even more. He really loved his uncle. Over the years he had observed the abuse his uncle and his niece had endured at the hand of Auntie Vera. Sitting so close at the funeral of his beloved uncle stirred painful memories. "She should be in the box," he thought. "It isn't fair that she drove him to an early grave and sits here today mostly thinking about what she will inherit."

As the preacher droned on, Gregg had a difficult time staying focused on his voluminous eulogizing. His mind wandered from vengeful wishes for Auntie Vera to pleasant memories of his Uncle Ray. He especially remembered the Sunday fishing trips his uncle organized. He always included as many family members and friends as he could entice to come along. It was the good times with people that he loved. Fishing was a way to get them together. When they went fishing there was always plenty of good food with cold drinks spread out on a makeshift table beside a creek or lake. Watermelons cooled in tubs of iced water were often available under insulated wraps. They were kept "until later" in the back of his flat bed truck that also served as group transportation. Usually, someone brought a guitar and started singing around a smoky campfire in the evening. Uncle Ray loved the singing. He also loved to tell stories. He constantly gathered story material from books, magazines, his own experiences, and people he met in his travels as a long distance truck driver. He especially liked mysteries and was big fan of Ripley's Believe It Or Not. In the flickering light of a campfire, he would spin marvelous (and almost believable) mystery tales. He also told some fascinating stories about his experiences when he was drafted to drive trucks for the U.S. Army in the jungles of Asia. When he wasn't telling stories or eating or singing, he wandered around and visited with people; especially the kids. He was really there for the kids. He baited hooks for the little ones. He untangled their lines when they got snagged. If lines were broken he replaced the lost hooks and sinkers. He fashioned hook removers from slender willow sticks and used them to carefully extricate hooks from fish that had swallowed them. He had a special grip for handling slippery catfish with poisonous spines and powerful jaws full of pinpoint teeth. If someone had the bad luck to catch a snapping turtle or a hated waterdog, he would cut the line and take the hapless creature someplace where it wouldn't be seen again. However, as time passed Gregg began to realize that behind the atmosphere of fun and fellowship Auntie Vera was nastily berating Uncle Ray with complaints and ridicule. She hated his family and imagined (or realized) that they also hated her. Uncle Ray would enjoy moments with his relatives and friends, only to get shot down by his wife when they were out of hearing range or in the car on the way home. Gregg had trouble believing her tears now at his uncle's graveside, unless they represented the loss of a captive she could torment.

He became aware that his thoughts about Auntie Vera were making him feel sad and angry. So he tried to change the focus of his ruminating. He tried to think of things that would distract him from the droning of the preacher. He wasn't having much luck until he caught a glimpse of something on the mound of plastic grass across the burial pit. It was green and blended in, but its quick movements from spot to spot gave it away. He strained to keep it in focus and follow its activities. When it moved close enough, he could see that it was a salamander. He sat mesmerized by this tiny green survivor with an ancient ancestry. No doubt a key feature in the survival of its species was the fact that it had developed two keen and independent eyes. They could each be rotated to provide a panoramic view of the world around it....