There stands a family graveyard at the foot of a hill in Canton KY. A town that once welcomed a President, that now doesn’t even have a Post Office nor a dot on new maps. The graveyard is that of the Curling’s. I remember going to that graveyard as a kid, and seeing all the gravestones of old lost relatives like the grandparents I never knew, and Aunts and Uncles that died before I was born. When I was a kid it was just going to see people I’d never met and just imagining who they were and what they were like.
When I was almost 9 in 1983, I remember seeing my Uncle Hubert go there (my Aunt Ruby’s husband). He died after a protracted battle with cancer. It was my first real witness of what went on to put you there.
The past few years of my life though people that I’ve cared the most about have gone there. There was Uncle Tom in 1994, and Aunt Mary Lou in 2005. This year cousin Steve joined them, and on Sunday afternoon Aunt Dorothy will go too, for she died today. She and Uncle Lonnie lived at the top of that hill when I was a child, and I remember going there and all the fun times I spent. The big breakfasts, the green beans and new potatoes, the dinners with Uncle Lonnie saucering his coffee to cool it down. Those days are all but memories now, but good ones. Aunt Dorothy was always special, and someone I cared about. I wish that I’d seen her more in the past few years, but as things go…you can’t go back. I’m glad that the memories that stand out are those of the times spent on that hill, watching Michigan win the NCAA title in basketball while I was on vacation there, romping in the grass, eating down home food, and thinking that it would never end.
With Aunt Dorothy’s passing it leaves only 3 (Aunt Ivy, Aunt Ruby, and my father) of 14 of my Grandparents children (my Dad being the youngest, and me being the youngest grandchild).
Rest in peace Aunt Dorothy for you were loved by many.