Dinner on the Ground
They have returned. Lively and talkative, smelling of strange harsh perfumes, they flow into these wooded spaces. They carry trowels and shovels, clippers, rakes and hoes. Men, women, and children, wearing gloves, lug boxes of flowers and bags of dirt. They are dressed for church as they fan out and mark the four corners of our universe.
For many years the tools changed little, the clothing stayed the same. Horses pulled buggies, carriages and wagons. The living did what we did before them in our time. More recently the quiet has been broken by roaring motors, the sounds of internal combustion and treads on stone.
Grand vehicles with rubber wheels and glass windows park on the meadow just beside us. The men move cutting machines back and forth, clearing the thick stands of honeysuckle, wild grass, and poison ivy away. The women rake and scrape the earth, removing the dead leaves and wreathes of yesteryear. The children run up and down between the trees along the rows, pointing out the gray, weathered markers that are almost invisible, swallowed by overgrowth and age.
We are the living and the dead. We are a family that extends through time.
In a few hours, the old gravestones are squared and cleaned, floral displays are placed, garden patches are filled with new soil and favorites are planted — daisies, black-eyed-susans, lavender and phlox. The blooming rose and lilac bushes are pruned and relieved of curling, choking vines. Overhead the sun flickers through the canopy of oak and maple leaves as a soft breeze caresses them, letting them know how much we appreciate their care.
They put away their tools now, and gather before the eldest of us. Some twenty-five adults and young, they hang their heads while one of them says a prayer. Then they sing. Every year it is a different song.
All of us feel the excitement, the anticipation. An elderly woman known to many of us — a daughter, a sister, a cousin — calls out with shaky strength, “Let’s eat!”
And they go to their trucks and cars and vans and return bearing cartons and baskets and bundles. They are chattering now, telling stories about us, gossiping about us, and we listen, amused and pleased. Quilts — some heirlooms, others newly crafted — are flung and flapped and fly on the air, settling in waves and ripples on the ground beside relatives lying underneath who have waited all year for this moment.
The aroma of fried chicken fills the world as huge platters of it are passed around from group to group each sitting on a soft, colorful rectangle of stars and rosettes and geometric designs. Soon every person present is surrounded by all manner of vegetables, fruits, bread and rolls, and so many different kinds of cakes, pies, puddings, and other sweets that it is impossible to name them all.
Their hearts pumping, their lungs filling and expelling air, their mouths watering, they pause to say grace and to toast us with lemonade and fresh iced tea. Someone calls out, “Come and get it!”
We shiver with expectation and rise, passing through loamy dirt into the dapples of sunshine, dancing into the light. We search for our loved ones, some of us twittering like birds as we recognize our kin. A few of us circle and circle like darting dragonflies, confused and sad because no one they remember is there. They hover like tiny, invisible flames on the edges of the throng, for a time feeling lost and alone.
But soon someone munching on an apple or stuffing a piece of cornbread into their mouth, tells a story about “that old so-and-so, Mamaw’s second cousin, Sam,” and one of the outliers swirls and flares and settles down cross-legged on the quilt where these distant relations have invoked his name, feeling wanted once more.
Our shared dinner on the ground is bittersweet. For while we are moved and warmed by life, remembrance, and love, we also are once again reminded of passing and sorrow and the inevitable forward motion that steals life with a flash or chips away at it bit by bit. For us, there is no other time. For us, it is a harsh admonition when we realize that hours have passed and the sun is setting and these flesh and blood folk are shedding tears as they begin to pack up the remains of their feast and fold up their quilts.
For those of us who choose to stay, to cling to the world, this one day, Decoration Day, Memorial Day is our only day. Everything else is eternity.
The quilts disappear into hampers and totes. In the distance, engines sputter and rumble into life like growling animals. Women and men collect the last vestiges of their meal into boxes and bags, others heft small, exhausted children who lay their tender heads on broad shoulders, their cheeks flushed and their hair mussed. The darkness grows. We hover in the mists and last golden rays. We shake and sigh with the fluttering leaves and creak with the swaying branches. We cleave to the very air with electric thoughts, not wanting to let go.
The people straggle away amidst the noises of opening and slamming doors and spinning tires. In the twilight a middle-aged woman remains to kneel at a grave, weeping once more while a young man squats down to adjust the floral arrangement on his grandmother’s plot.
After a while we become aware that they are all gone. It is wrenching to say good-bye. Once we were them, leaving those who came before us in the darkness. Now one by one we descend to our rest, and we wait. We wait for next year and their return.
