The clouds are people, too

Because grief involves an endless returning, this story tells itself out of order.

August 2019:

I’m standing in the alley behind Maria’s Bookshop after finishing a bookstore shift, and I’m fixated on the sunset over the mountains. Right now, beauty is a distraction since I’m bracing myself for the last phone call I’ll ever have with my uncle Virgil. Days ago, his health started deteriorating in an El Paso hospital. We hoped he would pull through, like he has before, but conditions are getting worse, and now my aunt wants to make sure I say goodbye. As the day darkens, I’m in tears pacing around the alley, thanking my uncle Virgil for everything: for the childhood summers in Oklahoma, for long drives through the Arizona desert and for his encouragement every time I learned a new song on guitar or wrote a new short story. I want to hear him call me “son” one more time, but it doesn’t happen. The phone call drains me, and I feel paralyzed in loneliness, knowing my family is hundreds of miles away while I’m in Durango. I can’t fold the earth to be closer to them. I can’t fold time to return the impossible past.

 

December 2016:

Red Valley, Ariz., is the center of the earth for my mom’s family. The landscape seeps into my dreams. In these dreams, I’m held in the everlasting arms of red sand and canyons. We are having our family holiday dinner out here in Arizona. It’s a matter of time before my uncle Virgil arrives. This will be my first time seeing him in a wheelchair. I wonder if one day he’ll spring back to good health and won’t need a wheelchair. All my life, he’s come across as larger than life. But when he enters the dining room, I realize that image of him will just be a memory. It hasn’t been that long since I last saw him, but it looks like he’s aged 20 years. He still tries to be the life of the party, but it’s not quite the same. When dinner is over, I give uncle another hug. He smiles and says, “Goodbye, son.” And there’s something nourishing about the way he calls me son. As long as I have these moments with him, I know I’ll never truly feel lost or alone.

 

November 2012:

I’m in the living room of my grandmother’s trailer in Red Valley. The trailer looks smaller than I remember. I’ve been on a steady diet of school and work, so it feels like a lifetime since I’ve shown up to a family gathering here. Soon, we must close our eyes while my mother blesses the food. Her words drift in the background: “Thank you, lord, for this day, for keeping us alive and together as a family.” She expresses gratitude about remaining brave and loving, and then I look up at the faces of my people: aunts, uncles, grandparents. I realize these loved ones who once looked like mountains of endless strength are now getting older. I realize I need to be a better son, before it’s too late. After our meal, uncle Virgil wants to show me what he did with the hogan nearby. Uncle limps now when he walks, which makes it even more impressive that he was able to fix up a hogan by himself. “So what do you think, son?” He asks in his southern drawl, pointing to the whole room. Then he sits down on a chair, saying, “This is where I go to unwind and think. Being retired from the Army, I got a lot of time for that.” It’s inevitable that he brings up the Army. It’s his phantom limb. At a glance, I can see what the war has done to him. It’s written all over his face, and in the shape of his posture when sitting or walking. This is a new version of my uncle, and I don’t know what his road to recovery will look like. But when he calls me “son,” it sounds like he’s never changed.

 

September 2019:

It’s a miracle we’re here together, remaking the world with every teardrop and smile. We devoted the day to putting my uncle to rest in the red earth of Dinétah. It’s a long drive back to Durango for me. When I make my exit, the tide of family hugs and handshakes comes back. Take care, stay out of trouble, smash capital, I love you. I nod my head, say yes to all of this and depart with the sun. I drive through these sprawling roads, ensconced in the desolate, cinematic landscape. There are cowboys hitchhiking, going to and from. I see all those mountains in the distance; sacred and eternal. They surround us like gods, and I feel at home. I think maybe it’s in my blood, or maybe it’s something more – the soul, perhaps. And then I think of the loved ones no longer around. If only they could see this view. I briefly look up into the sky, and I see all those clouds. I know they are more than just clouds. Then I realize that the clouds are people, too. I roll down the windows to let them in, let them in. – Kirbie Bennett