A Very Clear Day

The cold weather came early this year. Recent days have been chill, gray, and sometimes wet.

But on this particular day, a brilliant sun rode a low, autumnal path across the sky. The cold, clear air did nothing to diffuse it. With almost physical force the morning light stripped away all the fuzz and blur from the world. Until each car, each tree, each cloud, each person seemed sharp-edged and freshly sculpted.

In this merciless light -- it hid nothing, it showed everything -- I dropped Rhumba off at her job and headed out on the road. My employer could do without me for a day. And I had places to go.

I have said here many times that I don't get out much. For one reason or another I'm a stay-at-home and mainly content to be one. Certainly there is great beauty here in Santa Cruz; I need not go far to see it. But I've never been a fan of travel for the sake of travel, wherever I lived. I like my comfort, and my own bed.

Still, sometimes the need arises. This was one of those times. Someone had died. And I had a funeral to attend.

So I drove up Highway 17, across the Santa Cruz Mountains, and up the Bay Area on Interstate 680 through Los Gatos, San Jose, Milpitas (all roads lead to Milpitas), Fremont, Pleasanton, Concord, and beyond. Traffic was heavy. Everywhere, traffic was heavy, though rush hour had passed.

Heavy, and fast. I gripped the wheel perhaps more tightly than I once would have. Too many cars, moving too fast, changing lanes too often and with too little warning.... I was one pinball among thousands on a vast game board of traps and thumper-bumpers. While some unseen player worked giant flippers.

I age. My concentration, my reaction time are not all that they once were. And yet, more than my abilities have changed. The freeways are faster now, more crowded, more ruthless than in years past. Glance too long at the passing countryside and you can find your fender up a Range Rover's backside.

And yet 35 years ago and more, at ten in the morning you could practically play a game of kickball on this road. But that was a smaller, saner Bay Area where people could afford to live near the places where they worked or learned or shopped or played. .

Who are all these people, driving 70 miles per hour a car-length apart? At 10 in the morning, under a cold sun? I knew why I was there. But the rest?

I made it through Concord to Martinez and then crossed one of the twin bridges that span the Carquinez Straits there. I remember when there was only one bridge. And before that, only a car ferry. I recall riding it with my father in a '52 Chevy. He bought me a 7-Up in the snack bar while we crossed the straits. It took 15 minutes. How the world changes.

Crossing the straights I left behind the worst of the traffic. And then nothing remained but a long speed run to Fairfield across the grasslands.

Fairfield has never been my home, but long ago I knew it well. I worked there, went to college there, hung out there, and had more than a few drinks there. Fairfield's an old Air Force town in the middle of farm and cattle country: a little conservative but also mellow and casual.

And Aunt Mary had lived there, and many times my family had come up for family functions at her place. This day I returned to Fairfield for Mary's funeral: one last family function.

Aunt Mary was my mother's sister; I've written of Mary before. She was a forthright woman of strong opinion who would say anything to anybody without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment. Sometimes, embarrassment would have been nice. But Mary was indifferent to her effect on others. She never doubted herself in any way.

When I first introduced Rhumba to Aunt Mary, before Rhumba and I married, Mary took me aside -- all of five feet aside -- and told me in a loud voice that I could do better and that she wanted to fix me up with one of her step-daughter's friends. This was typical Aunt-Mary behavior.

You will have noted that Rhumba did not come with me to the funeral.

It may seem strange, but our family never did get around to strangling Mary and throwing her body into Suisun Bay. But there was no malice in her, none. And like many bossy people who think they know best, she took a lot on herself for the good of the family. She saw to Grandma in Grandma's last years -- even though the two of them fought like cats. She organized endless family reunions. She made sure that everybody kept in touch with everybody else.

And Mary lived to a ripe old age, as bluff and confident people often do: almost 94, and driving till near the end. Mary outlived Grandma, my mother, and all their brothers and sisters. She was the last of the old family. Underneath her were only we cousins, her nieces and nephews, now in our 50's and '60's and '70s. Many of the cousins are already grandparents and have formed their own family dynasties.

So I came to the funeral to honor Mary, but also to say goodbye to the old family. With Mary gone, it has no focal point. Its pieces, already receding from one another, may never come together again.

I met my sister in the funeral home parking lot and we went in for the service. There we found the other cousins, and the children of the cousins, and the grandchildren of the cousins. Most of them I couldn't name if my life depended on it.

Nobody gave a eulogy. The preacher called out for anyone who felt the need to stand and say something about Mary. A couple of people responded, both of them friends of Mary's. But not one family member felt the need. She was just .... Mary. Everybody knew her, and everybody knew what everyone else knew. In ten decades, it had all been said.

At the cemetery we stood in the brilliant sunlight as a machine lowered the coffin into the ground and the preacher said a few words. A lot of people came up and greeted me by name; I didn't know, or recognize, half of them. It occurred to me how long it had been since I'd seen most of these people. And that although the old family was dissolving, perhaps I'd already left it.

After, the family went to Cousin Bob's place for a get-together. Most people sat with the people they'd come with and quietly ate deli sandwiches from some supermarket. The zeitgeist was oddly somber and quiet.

You might say that this was normal; after all, someone had died. But historically funerals have spawned the best parties my family ever held: big, noisy, crowded affairs with lots of drinking and catching-up and tubs of Portagee beans and linguica and ham.

But the live-wire uncles and aunts of old were gone, and something felt "off" about their children and their children's children.

I'm a shy person, but I did something out of character: I worked the room. I talked to people I knew, and people whose faces I could connect to no name. I walked up to folks and said, "I've forgotten your name, but how are you?"

Many of them had the same problem I did: they were furiously trying to remember names, and keeping to themselves because they couldn't. Bossy Aunt Mary, and some of the other oldsters, used to haul people around the room and reintroduce them to each other. But the old folks who knew everyone were gone.

Still, people were happy to talk since I was making the effort; we reconnected. I chatted with adults whom I hadn't seen since their toddler years. And after talking to enough of the family, I figured out why there was no energy in the room.

Like America, my family is hurting. The kids can't find good work; the parents are struggling with health insurance and other concerns. And are worried about their kids besides.

Cousin Lorene wants to retire; but without her job, the health insurance payments will crush her and her hub. Cousin Trish is happy that her college-grad son got a good job; but her own job, which she's had for 30 years, is being reduced to part-time. She's losing income and health benefits. At 62.

Cousin Steve's boy Anthony set out to become an emergency medical technician. And he succeeded. It was rewarding work for a young man who likes action, and there was plenty of work. And then, there wasn't. He got laid off, and the openings dried up. He works at Sam's Club now.

Cousin Bob's son Jack got off to a fast start in construction down in Florida. But when Florida real estate crashed he spent years looking for work; and he'd still be looking, with a family to feed, if Cousin Bob hadn't pulled strings with his own employer to get Jack hired.

I could go on; why bother? Everybody's worried. As Bob's son Jack said, it's a crazy world right now. I told him he'd live to see it straighten out. I hope I'm right.

I enjoyed myself; but I stayed only an hour. I wanted to get back to Santa Cruz before the evening commute kicked in. My life is elsewhere, far from all these people. It's no wonder that we knew little about each other.

In the end, we cared enough to talk, but it took some doing. In hard times like these, we all start to shut down a little; we pull in the boundaries of our lives. And old family ties dissolve even faster than they might have.

All the best to Aunt Mary, wherever she is. If there's an afterlife, she's probably telling them how to run it. For all her faults, she kept the family together. By her absence, she shows how hard a job that was.

And yet, as I walked down the driveway to my car Cousin Little Joe came up from behind and gave me a big hug. Little Joe is 6 foot two and husky. He dresses in black from head to toe. He hugs hard.

I didn't expect this. We'd spoken only briefly. But I hugged him back, and meant it.

The family is drifting -- has drifted -- apart. But the pieces can still strike a spark or two when they do meet. And for that achievement, Mary -- and Johnny and Joey and Pinky and Mom and Augie and Tony, all the other uncles and aunts who've passed on -- deserve a bow. God rest them all.