CHAPTER 12
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
—2 Corinthians 1:3–4
Epicurus believed that the reason the living should not fear death was that in dying, we cease to exist and therefore won’t experience the pain or turmoil of the death itself. He writes, “Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us… While we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are.”1
I’m typically pretty dismissive of anyone who tells me that death is nothing to fear. But I know better than to argue with a dead philosopher, and in some respects, I can see where he is coming from. Certainly, death seems to exact its most painful wounding on the living who remain behind in their grief. Poet Owen Dodson captures this so poignantly:
Death always happens
To somebody else,
Not the dead.2
Who is the “somebody else?” Friends, sisters, brothers, parents. It is the “survivors” who suffer through the shock, the pain of the absence, the lingering questions, and the regrets that come with death. My sister and my grandmother were spared from experiencing the agonizing aftermath of their own passing. We were not.
And yet, there’s something about grief that can, at times, feel a bit selfish. It may sound strange, but when we lost my sister, I always felt like she, as the person who had died, should be at the center of the story. She was the primary victim. Her loss could never be about me or my pain. Her life, her legacy—that’s what mattered the most.
As I’ve continued on in my broken, bereaved state, these are questions I’ve wrestled with: What is my responsibility to the dead? How do I honor their memories, or “keep their flame alive”? I’ve sometimes worried that if I don’t manage the memory of my grandmother or my sister well, if I don’t caretake their legacy, that somehow they will totally disappear. I cling desperately to any scrap of their existence. In spite of how incapacitated I am by my sadness, I’ve felt like my new full-time job is to never, ever let the world forget them. And somehow, no matter how much I strive, I feel them slipping further and further away.
Memorial Day in America, recognized on the last Monday of May, was officially established as a government holiday in 1968. The holiday as we know it today recognizes all American military personnel who have died in the line of duty. Initially, Memorial Day began as a commemoration of Civil War soldiers and was observed on different dates by various Southern and Northern states. It was sometimes known as Decoration Day.
Decoration Day in the Upland South, particularly Appalachia, however, is a distinctive tradition unique to this region in which all graves, military and civilian alike, within a particular cemetery are annually cleaned and adorned with flowers. Each family or church cemetery observes Decoration Day on a different but preestablished date on the calendar. Scholars maintain differing opinions on the origins of this unique mountain tradition. Some believe Decoration Day in southern Appalachia finds its roots in the Welsh holiday called “Flowering Sunday” during which flowers are strewn across graves on the same day as Palm Sunday.3
Others believe that the practice most likely grew out of the custom of funeralizing. Back when mountain settlements were remote and difficult to access, qualified members of the clergy were hard to come by. Often, funerals were delayed until a circuit preacher was available to come to the isolated community and conduct the service. A person would be buried immediately after they died, but a family might have to wait for months to experience the consolation of a religious service. This was especially true if the loved one passed away in the late fall or winter when roads were impassable. There are some cited instances where a funeral took place decades after the deceased had passed.
In the rugged mountains, where a speedy remarriage for a bereaved spouse was sometimes crucial for survival, it wasn’t uncommon for a widow or widower to attend the funeral of their late spouse with their new spouse on their arm. Funeralizing also meant that services were sometimes conducted in bulk, with a circuit preacher performing funerals, along with weddings and baptisms, for several members of a community at once. It was not unheard of to even conduct a funeral prior to a person dying, if a good circuit preacher was around, and death—and cold weather—seemed imminent.4
Funerals were therefore a significant event in the life of a mountain town. Family and friends would come from miles around and the entire community was involved. Massive amounts of food were prepared, and because the grieved had had some amount of time to absorb the loss, the occasion took on a festive and celebratory mood. Fall was an ideal time for a funeral because the weather was still decent and the work of the year’s harvest had been completed. Grave sites, some of which had been dug a year earlier, were cleared and cleaned up before the funeral took place.
This ritual of cleaning and preparing grave sites may have been the precursor to Decoration Day in Appalachia.5 Different churches and communities had different days designated as their own Decoration Day, but typically the event would take place on a Sunday during late spring, summer, or early fall. The Saturday before Decoration Day would be spent cleaning all the graves in the cemetery. Sunday, the day the actual decoration would take place, was filled with music, singing, laughter, crying, food, and storytelling. Everyone would gather for a religious service with hymns, prayers, and preaching, and graves were decorated with flowers.
Originally, Appalachian cemeteries were clean dirt yards on hillsides, and part of the Decoration event was to clear the weeds, grass, and saplings that had grown over the graves since the last Decoration Day. Gravestones were simple. Some were simply large, plain fieldstones, while others were carved by local craftsmen or neighbors who were handy with a chisel.6 Mounding was the practice of putting fresh dirt and sand over a grave where the earth had settled or sunken in. Mounding would continue as a ritual of Decoration Day long after the grave required it because for many, it felt like a reenactment of the original burial. Mounds, decorated as they often were with a single row of flowers, reflected the imagery of a typical Appalachian vegetable garden, a symbol of new life.7
Most people today who still practice Decoration Day use store-bought plastic flowers to adorn graves. These durable flourishes are slow to fade and will often maintain their pop of color even through the long winter months. In years past, people collected real flowers—“ivy” (mountain laurel) and “red laurel” (red rhododendron) and any wildflower that was in bloom.8 It was also customary to make flowers out of crepe paper to place on the graves. Some families would spend the entire winter folding delicate paper blossoms of various colors and then store them in cardboard boxes until Decoration Day arrived.9
Older generations remember Decoration Day as being one of the most significant holidays of the year. People would wear their best clothes and prepare the best recipes. For families who traveled from far and wide, it was a time to reconnect and share memories. It was even a time for young people, dressed up in the latest fashions, to scout for marriage prospects.10
A Decoration Day service would take place at or very near the cemetery. A preacher would facilitate the service and there was always a choir or musical group that would lead in the singing of the old mountain hymns. The service would reach its emotional peak as people began to recount remembrances and testimonials of their lost loved ones. Tears were shed and laughter was shared.11
“Dinner on the grounds” is a term used for the potluck meal served picnic-style in the church yard or cemetery at the Decoration Day service. Almost like a graveyard Communion service, dinner on the grounds would involve the fellowship of the saints, plus buttermilk biscuits, fried chicken, corn bread, berry pies, and apple stack cakes.
Sadly, as the years have gone by, the customs surrounding Decoration Day have started to fade from the Appalachian countryside. Families have moved and old cemeteries remain unvisited and unkempt. Or landscaping companies with no tie to the cemetery are paid to mow it a few times a year. There are still churches that maintain some of the traditions. You can always tell which ones those are. You might be driving through the mountains on a sunny afternoon, the hillsides heavy with the green growth of late summer. Suddenly, there is a clearing and a vibrant splash of color—red, pink, yellow, blue, and white plastic flowers piled on top of headstones and arranged in neat rows across graves.
Almost every year since I moved to the mountains ten years ago, my aunt has asked me if I wanted to come to Decoration Day at the old family cemetery in Bakersville. In years past, I honestly didn’t fully understand what she was asking me to attend. I’d always ignore the call or text, or I’d come up with some excuse for why I couldn’t make the hour-long drive over there.
This year, however, I was eagerly awaiting my invitation to Decoration Day at the Burleson Family Cemetery. I had visions of picnic tables filled with fried okra, sliced homegrown tomatoes, peach cobblers, and deviled eggs. I pictured myself reconnecting with second cousins and great-aunts I hadn’t seen since I was a little girl, and I imagined raising our voices together, singing the old songs and sharing fond memories.
But when I asked my aunt about Decoration Day this year, she said, “Oh, they don’t really do that anymore. At least not like they used to.” There is no service or singing. There is no picnic. Families still decorate the graves of their relations on the first weekend in September. But they do it on their own time and don’t make a big show about it.
I missed it. A ritual passed away before my very eyes. I’d been too busy, too caught up in the demands of life. I had participated in its extinction.
One fascinating aspect of Decoration Day is how the tradition traveled, in limited but profound ways. The practice of Decoration Day can be found in small pockets across the Upland South, extending into Arkansas and Texas. There are even areas of Ontario, Canada, that observe Decoration Day.12
Decoration Day is also widely practiced in Liberia, the West African nation originally established as a colony of the United States to “return” and “repatriate” free people of color back to Africa beginning in 1822. In fact, Decoration Day as a cultural practice is much more intact in Liberia than it is in Appalachia. In Liberia, it is a national holiday, recognized annually on the second Wednesday in March. The whole country shuts down for Decoration Day as families gather at cemeteries to clean grave sites, eat food, and share memories.
I spoke with my Liberian friend Gentry about Decoration Day in his country recently. Like many Liberian holidays, he tells me Decoration Day was borrowed from American traditions, a ritual hand-me-down that has been repurposed and reimagined to serve the needs of the Liberian people within their context. It likely journeyed across the ocean with emancipated slaves and free people of color who had lived and labored in the Upland South. As with many other aspects of Liberian culture, the American practice was interwoven with traditional tribal customs. Overt expressions of communion with the dead are of particular importance in parts of West Africa. At Decoration Day celebrations in Liberia, it is not uncommon to see libations offered to the deceased, with alcoholic beverages poured over the graves.
Gentry told me that Decoration Day practices vary from region to region and family to family. In many cemetery gatherings, the occasion takes on a very somber tone, with people wailing over the graves and memorializing lost loved ones. Graves are scrubbed clean and sometimes painted. In recent years, Decoration Day has developed into a more festive atmosphere. He tells me the younger generation of Liberians treat Decoration Day as an excuse to party—a time to eat, drink, and celebrate.
To this day, Liberians are still reckoning with what it means to be a nation whose social fabric is made up of the descendants of former slaves, colonizers, African Americans, and West Africans of various tribal groups. Decoration Day recognizes the impact of these ancestors and honors the legacy they have left behind.
But something Gentry told me got me thinking that Decoration Day does more than simply honor the lives of the deceased. He told me that traditional tribal beliefs emphasize the ongoing role that the dead play in our lives. That is why many people, particularly on Decoration Day, will take time to talk to the dead. People will weep aloud and report to the dead loved one all the important events that have transpired since their passing: births, marriages, hardships, employment lost or found, natural disasters, hunger or plenty.
On Decoration Day, it seems, we tell the stories of our loved ones. And we tell our own stories. We recognize the impact the loss has had on us, and the way we have journeyed forward. In Appalachia and Liberia, on Decoration Day, we gather with the community of the living. Standing over the bodily remains of our lost loved ones, we commemorate what remains above—the love we continue to share for them and for one another, the character they shaped, the lives they helped build, the way the human spirit triumphs over tragedy.
Many people think that grief is primarily the endeavor to honor the memory of the deceased. To grieve well is to deflect, to minimize our own experiences in the name of elevating the stories of our lost loved ones. We marinate in our survivor’s guilt. We feel the competing sweetness and shame of the privilege of living. I must become small, we may think to ourselves, so that the dead do not disappear.
But survival is not a zero-sum game. To belittle our own existence in the name of another dishonors the image of God in us and His sovereign choice to allow us to go on living. Many of the beautiful rituals of grief I’ve studied are as much about honoring our own experience of loss as they are about honoring the lives of the dead. A ritual holds space for both purposes. And perhaps that’s how it should be.
Why do I get to go on living?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times. What makes me more deserving than the dead? And what do I do with myself now that I am walking around with this horrible wound and deep sense of knowing what it means to be mortal?
What has been accomplished by all this grief? Is there any silver lining, any redemption to be found? Is the wisdom I’ve gained worth the loss I’ve endured? Wouldn’t I still go back and change it all? Wouldn’t I beckon my babies’ hearts to keep beating and beg my sister to find a way to stay? Wouldn’t I trade all the lessons learned to have them back?
Two and a half years after my sister’s death and a year and a half after my last miscarriage, I still find myself in worship services feeling so wary, so numb, so cynical. I confess there have even been a few times that I considered walking away from the faith altogether. I was trying to connect with the Lord in prayer, in worship, through the reading of the Word, but somehow, my soul still felt like an empty cavern.
For years, I’ve taught aid workers that it’s best not to make major life decisions in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. With that admonition in mind, when it came to my faith in God, I decided not to decide. I decided to wait, to watch, to pray. I decided to be patient, to not come to any conclusions, at least not right away.
I’m not going to tell you that God showed up in an undeniable way. I’m not going to say He spoke audibly to me in the whirlwind or even in the silence. I’m not going to tell you He appeared in a vision or gave me signs and wonders.
But something happened inside me in the midst of my grief that I cannot deny. I was being shaped, molded. I was growing in wisdom, in compassion, in patience, and in strength. Yes, this new growth was running parallel to my increased anxiety, sadness, and anger. But somehow, somewhere, the beauty of God’s work in my life seemed to overtake the ugliness of it all, eclipsed it in some mysterious way.
That eclipsing was the miracle I had trouble squaring with the atheistic worldview I was dabbling in. God must have been real. I didn’t exactly feel God making my life easier, assuaging all my fears, or alleviating all my sadness. But I did feel Him molding me. I felt Him guiding me. I didn’t like it at first, and there are certainly still times that I miss the old me. I can’t explain it, but His tutelage of me in this season has been one of the most powerful and intimate experiences of my life.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul shares about some of the struggles he and his companions experienced in ministry, struggles so discouraging that he “felt we had received the sentence of death” (v. 9). But in verses prior to this, he praises God, who is the Father of compassion, who is able to comfort us. When we receive this comfort, we then, in turn, are able to comfort others.
This passage may be one of the most frequently quoted bits of Scripture as a response to grief. I confess, I’ve always had mixed feelings about these verses. There were plenty of days where I did not experience the feeling of comfort. And I wondered if God had failed in His promise. Or perhaps I had failed somehow in accessing the goodness of God.
Biblical commentator John Short has this to say about the inadequacy of the translation of the word “comfort” (parakalon): “Comfort is a word which in modern speech has lost much of its [New Testament] meaning. It suggests to us a kind of sedative, a palliative for pain of body or mind. But the comfort of God is no narcotic.” He goes on to say that the word for “comforter,” when applied to the Holy Spirit, actually means “strengthener.” It’s the same root from which we get the word “fortify.” “We comfort a sufferer,” he writes, “when we give him courage to bear his pain or face his misfortune. Comfort is what sets him on his feet.”13
Grief gave birth to something in me. I can’t even name it. I can’t describe it. It is a very particular and mysterious form of strength that is both humbled and emboldened. I wouldn’t wish those labor pains on anyone. But I cherish the outcome. “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).
I don’t in any way think of myself as “complete.” I’ve noticed that many self-help books, including grief-oriented self-help books, tend to be written by folks who have developed a sense of confidence in their own ability to overcome their challenges. They peddle that confidence to hurting consumers and insist that everyone apply the same blueprint that worked for them.
Let me be clear. I have not figured this out. I’m still fumbling my way through grief. I’ve numbed, I’ve stubbornly refused to ask for help, I’ve thrown things, I’ve pretended to be fine, I’ve isolated, I’ve almost given up.
And…
God has been here. As my boss said, God has helped me. If comfort is a good feeling, then God failed. But if comfort is fortification, then God has more than made good on His promise.
If I could offer one word of advice about grief, I would say this: Stay. Stay on the path. Lean into the elements. Carry the load and don’t put it down. Endure. You will reap a harvest. God will help you.
I will never say that my grief has been good. But I will say that it has not been wasted. Not one bit. As I wrote in the beginning, sometimes you must let grief have its way with you. Resist the urge to deny or numb. Rather, remain under the brutal burden of grief. Stare it straight in the eye. Somehow, some way, grief has made me who I am today. The sorrow that threatened to break me apart is now the cement that holds me together.
Recently, a reporter came to my hometown to interview my family and a handful of my sister’s friends about her impact in the world and in our lives. We stayed up late into the night, talking on my brother-in-law’s back porch, sharing stories about growing up with Rachel, how she’d found her voice in her high school and college years, how she’d grown into the indomitable force that she was within American Christian culture.
But while Rachel was the unifying thread in each of our anecdotes, the stories we shared were as much about us and our own journeys as they were about Rachel. They were stories of faith lost and found, of character formed and fashioned, of love and compassion purified in the refining fire of grief. They were stories of triumph over tribulation, of finding joy amid the sorrow, of how her life and love had shaped our lives. It was a sacred night. A hard night. A good night.
More than a postmortem photograph, more than a decorated headstone, more than a memento mori necklace, and more than a wail or the resounding toll of a bell, Rachel’s life echoes on in the world through the faithful and brave living on of the people whose lives she changed. Her heart beats on in the hearts of those who have been changed by her love for us and our love for her. By telling our own stories, we tell her story.
Death will not steal from me the blessing of what it was to know and love Rachel and call her my very own sister. It cannot rob me of the joy of having had her in my life. To be grateful for her despite the pain of her loss is an act of resistance, a declaration that I will not be defeated by the tyranny of death.
Frankly, there is no epitaph, no monument, no memorial that could adequately convey all that my sister is and was. Even the most attentive, ardent stewardship of her memory will never bring her back. But I am here. We are here. We are the living stones that testify to her life and impact. Our lives are her memorial. By honoring ourselves, we honor her.
The first Sunday of September is Decoration Day at the Burleson Family Cemetery in Bakersville, North Carolina. No, it is not the large celebration it once was. There is no potluck or hymn singing. But families do still come at some point in the weekend and lay flowers on the graves of loved ones. I drove over there the Monday after Decoration Day, this time with little Lois, who was six months old at the time.
The day was bright, and the beating sun drew a sweat despite the chill of the coming autumn in the breeze. As I turned my Subaru onto the backroad leading to the cemetery, I noticed that this time, the heavy, rusted gate was swung open. Lois had been lulled to sleep as we traversed the winding mountain roads, so after I parked my car under the trees, I cracked the windows, turned the car off, and left her dreaming in the backseat.
I walked onto the neatly mowed cemetery knoll. I’d come prepared. The week before I’d spent almost an hour in the floral section of the local craft store, meticulously searching for just the right arrangements. I tried to remember what my grandmother’s favorite flower was, which colors my grandfather liked the best. In the end, I went with some bright black-eyed Susans and white daisies on the sale rack. Plastic flowers, it turns out, are pretty pricey.
As my eyes adjusted to the glaring sunlight, I could see that sure enough, the grassy knoll was covered in bright flowers of every color. The leaves were raked and the branches cleared. The fence was repaired, and the stones were clean. Some grave markers were more elaborately decorated. One had at least a dozen stems sticking up out of the ground around the stone. Others had been adorned with flags and crosses.
Most astonishingly, every single grave had a single, fresh-cut pink hydrangea blossom on it—every single grave, whether it had a brand-new stone or one 150 years old; whether it was an infant who died the day she was born or an old man who lived into his nineties; whether it had a large headstone with an intricate carving, a simple wooden cross, or a century-old fieldstone half buried and long forgotten.
I’m not sure who put the hydrangeas there. Because I’ve never been to Decoration Day, I’m not sure if it is an annual tradition at the Burleson Cemetery, or if someone had simply had a particularly prolific hydrangea bush that year. Nevertheless, it was a tender and reverent offering.
I carried my flowers over to my grandparents’ graves and arranged them in a way I liked. I wandered through the cemetery with a watchful eye on my Subaru where Lois was still sleeping. I found the grave of a distant cousin and an infant child of his I never knew existed. I found the graves of my great-great-great-grandfather and -grandmother and left a flower for them.
“We are okay,” I told them. “We made it. We survived. I just thought you should know. And Lois is here. You should see her. She has the best smile.”
I drove to the family graveyard by way of Carver’s Gap, a high mountain pass near the top of the Roan. There is a narrow highway that cuts through the pass and if you turn at Carver’s Gap to the west, a road takes you up to Roan High Knob and the rhododendron gardens. If you park instead at Carver’s Gap, you can connect by foot to the portion of the Appalachian Trail that traverses the balds of the Roan Highlands: Round Bald, Grassy Ridge Bald, and Jane’s Bald.
Growing up, I’d always heard from the locals that Jane’s Bald was named for a woman who had died of milk poisoning while crossing the mountain sometime back in the 1800s. I didn’t know what milk poisoning was exactly, but I always felt a chill run down my spine when we’d ascend that part of the mountain and approach the crude wooden sign marking the top of Jane’s Bald.
It turns out that this popular synopsis, though prevalent, is not the complete story. The story of Jane’s Bald is a story of a family of sisters. Appalachian journalist Michael Joslin interviewed Elsie Yelton, the granddaughter of the woman who actually died. He published her account in 1999 in the Johnson City Press.14
According to Elsie, in 1870 her grandmother Harriett decided to cross the Roan from North Carolina with her sister Jane in order to visit their two other sisters who lived on the Tennessee side of the mountain. Harriett had recently recovered from milk poisoning, a disease brought on by drinking milk from a cow that had eaten the white snakeroot plant. She felt she was strong enough to make the journey, though another sister, Judy, warned her and Jane not to go. After an uneventful crossing and a good visit with the Tennessee sisters, Jane and Harriett began their return trek home over the Roan on November 16.
The weather shifted, as it is apt to do in the mountains, from warm and sunny to cold and cloudy. Harriett became weaker and weaker as they climbed higher and higher, and by the time they reached the balds, the milk sickness had returned and made her extremely ill. Unable to continue on, Harriett and Jane hunkered down on the mountain for the night, the wind whipping around them. Jane didn’t leave her sister’s side, keeping vigil over her weakening body, watching for bears and bobcats.
At first light, Jane fled down the mountain in search of help. Charley Young, who lived in a cabin not far from Carver’s Gap, brought his wagon as far as he could, then climbed up to find Harriett still alive, but very frail. He helped both women into the wagon. Jane was almost frozen to death herself. Harriett, who was only twenty-four, died shortly after they finally made it home.
Jane, however, went on to live a long life well into the 1940s. No doubt she carried the memory of that fateful journey always. From the day of Harriett’s death onward, all the locals called that portion of the mountain Jane’s Bald, in honor of the fierce, freezing vigil Jane kept at her sister’s side. In honor of her pain. In honor of her loss.
That Monday after Decoration Day, I parked my car at Carver’s Gap. I strapped Lois to my chest and began to climb. As always, there is a world of weather at the top of the mountain. But this time, it was different. This time, the heavy mist occasionally parted, and the sun peeked through. I stood on the mossy trail, Lois breathing on my neck. If I waited long enough, I could see the swirling fog reveal the valley below, hillsides and hollows stretching a million miles in every direction.
Up on these balds, my heart ached for Jane. At one point in our hike, the trail parted and I began to fear I’d gone the wrong way. In the heavy mist without the benefit of a horizon, it’s easy to get lost, to lose your sense of east and west, of up from down. She must have been so scared up there on that bald in the dark, cold unknown. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for the first glimpse of light.
But this was not my first time on the Roan. It wouldn’t be my last. Lois and I made our way on the well-worn path and soaked in the highlands until her tiny whimper told me she was hungry and it was time to go home. I took one last look at the bald. Mountains are absorbent, as Annie Dillard said. This mountain held pain. It held loss. It held hope. It held memory, my memories. “Look, Amanda! I’m flying! I’m flying through the clouds!”
Jane. Harriett. Two sisters. And a mountain, named not in honor of the one who died, but in honor of the one who lived. The one who grieved.