Rhythms, skydiving, engagements, life and death
In the early hours of Friday morning I received a phone call from my mom letting me know that Grandmother K had passed away in the early morning hours at the age of 99. Over the past several days, many of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have posted their thoughts on various outlets, all processing and celebrating the life of Veda Karnes.
(Sadly, the nine great-great-grandchildren are a little too young to legally have their own Facebook page)
When you get to be as close to a hundred years old as she was, one's death and passing rarely comes as a surprise. Because of this, over the past few weeks I've found myself reflecting about her often. Catching myself sharing her stories with clients at the gym, asking about stories about her from my mom. Laughing and pondering a life I only knew from a certain distance.
I have learned over the past few years that growing up and knowing five great-grandparents is a rarity. I have distinct memories of all four of my dad's grandparents. Some are rich characters, some weak, some were enjoyed, others were more painful.
My mom's grandmother was the only one on her side still living when I was born. And she still lived longer, and had more stories than all the others combined.
I've often heard and known some of these stories, but they sadly have always been shared from second, third or fourth hands. When I was born, she was 73 and I have no cognizant memory of her under the age of 80. And yet she stands in my mind as this fascinating paradox of a woman.
Tiny, frail, tired, quiet and not always coherent. And so sharp, so witty, so fiery at times. Her stories, jokes, and life (and secrets) were often so grand, and yet they have only been shared in the hushed tones that so sadly marks my extended family.
Most of my contact with her came during family reunions which were always defined by boredom, food, card games, and adults plodding the time until it was time to leave. In these moments, I learned that Vada Karnes was a viciously keen spades player and to be on her team meant you had to be on your a-game. (I rarely was). She would harbor grudges for multiple rounds of Phase 10, saving multiple skips to pin you out of a round because you chose her for a legitimate reason an hour ago. ("But Grandmother K, you were going to go out then, it made sense! Skip _____, they are going out and we're both going to lose!)
Interestingly enough, my dad had a good connection with her. He would always take her to lunch when he would travel near the remote town of Wellington, TX, a place where she resided for more than seventy years. Easily under ninety pounds, she would demolish any Mexican food plate in front of her. When dessert would come, she'd decline interest, but the second he looked away, she'd have eaten the whole thing, smiling and looking innocent.
She was sharp as a tack. The tradition of family humor, whit and bite are found even in her. When she turned ninety she went white-water rafting on the Rio Grande. Big and bold as ever, she proclaimed she would jump out of an airplane if she made it to a hundred. At her 99th birthday last year, everyone was giving her grief about her skydiving promise. The last decade had been harder on her than the others had. She had fallen several times and the shattered ribs and bones had remained broken. The body's repair function eventually fades away as do calcium deposits. She lived in a state of constant pain for much of her last decade. In the midst of the fog of aging, she found a precious moment of clarity as she remembered a joke she had laid the foundation for a decade prior. She smiled and chuckled in her response. "I said I'd jump out of a plane, but I never said if it was going to be off the ground."
The story I know, the one that I carry with me the closest is one that was among her most guarded and shy. It is also the one I find myself telling the most. The details are vague, probably embellished either in my mind, or her children's. To the best of my knowledge she moved to Wellington somewhere around the time she was in or just out of high school. She met a man, William, there whom she was attracted to. Funny thing was, he was engaged to another girl at the time. Before everyone had looked up there was a wedding, but it was to her, not to the other girl.
My little sister heard the story once. She recounts Grandmother K saying: "I had known him for a while because in a small town you know everyone. He was engaged to another woman but I fixed that and we were married til he died."
Dos Equis take note: The "Most Interesting Man in the World" isn't that bold. Especially in small town Texas.
As I have wrestled with her life and death over the past few weeks, two thoughts and themes emerge:
The first is that in living such paradoxical life she offered us an example of how to live in ordinary time. Ordinary time in the liturgical calendar is found inbetween festivals, feasts, and the Advent season we know now. Vada's stories of risk, smiles, and adventure were surrounded by days, months, years, decades of a very modest existence in a town of less than three thousand people. The mirth in her voice through her skydiving quip was born not in its hilarity, but in the patience, the rest, the realness of a woman who has spent much of her life merely living and watching time pass. The two realms are deeply intertwined. Life is not always white water rafting, Mexican food, and covered wagon moves to a dugout home. More often than not, it is the weekly quilting bee and canning peaches. A professor here at school remarked once on the importance of rhythms in life. "We do not have rhythms to keep us safe or to pass the time, but so that when they are disrupted and we break them, we can see, sense, and feel the disruption and pay close attention. There is a joy in the disruption because it is exciting, but there is also a joy in longing for the return to the regular." Vada's life was in many ways a testament to this.
The second is that there is equal importance in speaking of the words and the stories. The holes, the missing, the blanks, and the work I am doing to dig, uncover and understand her life reveals the prevalence of silence in the long-term narrative of the Karnes', the Brasell's and now the Putman's. Voice, stories and words are so starkly lacking in my extended families life, and the high cost that is being revealed in the days and weeks that will follow. It seems a shame to finally uncover the stories in the aftermath.
On one hand, one cannot reasonably expect my great grandmother to reveal the complexity of breaking up an engagement and marrying the same man weeks later. This was after all 1930, talk about scandalous. However if you want to talk about a strong, fiery, woman who saw something she wanted, in a time and situation where many could easily deem it inappropriate, she said "Damn the torpedoes." Aren't these, her stories of desire and movement, exactly the stories that should be told and held well within a community.
I find myself on the other side of the country on this, the day of her memorial service, in many ways silently marking her life. It feels fitting, and it feels sad and it feels a shame. I say this because the few stories I know of her life have offered me freedom to pursue, chase and live a life as vivacious and regular as she once did.
discoholicmusic
2087
tangentwithtanner
amandla
areudirty
pixelskylines
gamechangershow