I’d never dug a grave before.  As a 48 year old mother of five I’d just never had the occasion. So how did I find myself, with sandal-shod feet, on a crisp Idaho October evening digging and scrapping and shoveling at the gravel filled dirt?

I’d heard stories about Gary Kent since I was in infant. I somehow felt the responsibility to fill the gaping hole in my mother’s heart, as I was the first sibling to be born after Gary’s sudden passing at age 18 months.  It was an intangible kind of feeling, like knowing you were to be a good citizen, or a morally good person. You know of its importance, but it is such an elusive feeling.  My mother would say to me of Gary, “I’m sure Gary Kent told you all about our family before you were born and told you to be a good girl here on earth.” I would stretch back in my mind for that memory, unable to find it. I would hear stories of his short illness, the doctor visit with the charge to “come back in the morning if he’s not any better”, and the shock of finding him the next morning dead. 

It was like hearing about Great-grandpa Rubbra contracting Yellow Fever as he fought in the Boer War, or Grandma Haroldsen, who, as a young pregnant mother, cared for neighbors and family members who were sick with Small Pox only to later bare a stillborn son, infected with the disease.  Awful terrible stories that, even with the knowledge of their truth, still seemed somehow foreign and distant and intangible.

Then, my parents told me of their plan, to bring their baby home. They wanted to move his body to our town, to the cemetery plot they, themselves wished to be buried in. They asked me if my son, who worked on grounds at the cemetery would be able to dig the grave.  I said yes. The plans were made, the family notified, and the night before the re-burial arrived.  It was time to get started.  I took my strong 15 year-old son to the spot.  We had the dimensions; two feet wide, four feet long, three feet deep, and six inches from the newly moved headstone. Andy, my son had worked until midnight the night before in the potato harvest of our area and then got up early the next morning and went to school. He was worn out.  I could see it in his face.  His optimistic opinion that it would only take thirty minutes soon faded and I saw that he needed help. He was only down eighteen inches.  The gravel was packed hard. He pounded with the pick to loosen the dirt. I took the shovel from his hands and shoveled out the loosened soil.  He loosened, I shoveled.  Over and over until inch by inch we deepened the hole. I felt a kind of pride, or honor to do this.  I felt a closeness to the brother I had never known. It was becoming real.

The next morning we drove to the cemetery to attend the short service we had planned.  Cars were lined along the drive in front of the hole we had dug the night before.  I couldn’t see, and then, I saw.  The tiny white casket lay on the frame over the hole.  Suddenly it was tangible, very tangible. Here he was.  My brother. I felt as if we had just lost him.  I hugged my mother who said through her tears, “I forgot how small he was.”

 During the music a flock of migrating geese flew overhead. It was as if peace drifted down on us along with their cries.  I suddenly felt peaceful. We brought our brother and son home. Our family was once again complete.