Day 8: Memorial

Or Celebration, August 2, 2024

We woke up with too much to do, and it was getting too hot, promising to get hotter, and we were rushing from go, that terrible and wonderful frantic energy before an event. We started our day with yet another trip to the Ashland Hardware store, where we ran into our dear friend Bill Swadley –our LA family–as we contemplated RV power hookups. Bill told us, “You are the easiest people to find in Ashland,” because we had driven the Bus right by his rental and so he had followed us to the hardware store. It was familiar and comforting and odd to see Bill in my Dad’s favorite hardware store, a place where when visiting in years passed I would often run into my dad. I’d be there buying art supplies, and he’d roll up, munching his free popcorn. This time it was a different Bill, of course, but serendipitous all the same because I needed a place to arrange the flowers for the memorial event, and Bill had and air conditioned Air B &B.

Of course, there was a snafu with the flowers, which were delayed not because of the person at the flower shop, Eufloria, link to follow, nor because of the woman who had been helping me, Amber, but she was great to work with and even sold me some locally sourced scarlet snapdragons. But we were stressing about time, time, time, and then we were back at the Hardware store, and then the flowers were ready, and then Robert went to practice the music with Tom and Jordan, but I couldn’t come, so I would be going on cold, no rehearsal, but whatever, the flowers needed to be arranged.

Thankfully the flowers arrived and we shuttled them to Bill’s Air B &B, which turned out to be perfect for arranging flowers, with granite counters, deep sinks, and air conditioning. I had a lovely time talking to Bill about the production of Macbeth he’d seen the previous night, for Bill is not a man to let Shakespeare pass him by, and then there they were: flowers in mason jars, gerberas, roses, and, of course, snapdragons. I could tell I was stressed because I kept forgetting to add filler, but Bill helped me remember. All in all, my memory of that time was of respite, a cool time of flowers and something I knew how to do.

Soon enough I was done with the flowers, but time kept on ticking, ticking, ticking.but dropped me at Paula’s house of campers, for there was the trailer from my Great Aunt Janet, now Bree’s trailer, and Tom the Magnificent’s camper van, a Chinook, and Paula’s new Road Beast, and our Bus, many generations of camping vehicles all gathered together. Robert needed to go pick up the programs and the bookmarks and the poster, so he dropped me at the Stratford where I took the world’s quickest shower, then I hoofed it on foot to the Ashland Springs Hotel, which I will always think of as the Mark Anthony.

I say it is the Mark (as we always called the hotel) in my memory because that was the name I first knew this giant structure springing from downtown Ashland as, the place we could always see from our front porch on Vista Street. I have some stories about why this hotel, once the highest structure in the area, would resonate, but one is my Mother’s story. My mother’s family came from Corvallis, Oregon (although some of her family crossed the Oregon Trail, did not die of dysentery, and landed in the Applegate valley), and my grandfather on her side, Elwood Thomas, moved the family from Corvallis, Oregon to Lakewood in LA, selling shingles to the folks building houses. However, Elwood took his daughters, my mother and aunt, on an annual road trip from LA to Oregon, a road trip I know well. Elwood was an unusual man, and one thing he had that I share is a dislike of trucks on the highway, so Elwood’s mission on these long trips was to pass all the trucks and to never stop because then the trucks would get ahead of him, apparently not realizing that there are always more trucks on the road ahead. My mother has told me how the girls would beg, “Please, Daddy, just stop!” but Elwood was a resolute man on this issue if not on others, and so he would drive into the night.

One night he carried the girls sleeping to a hotel, and when they awoke they were high in the Mark Antony hotel, looking at the Rogue valley, resplendent in clouds and forests and rolling hills. I actually know this is true because when cleaning out my father’s basement at 190 Vista, I found a letter my Aunt Vicky wrote describing the experience. My mother always said that it was waking up in that high tower was one of the reasons she agreed to leave San Francisco and follow her husband to Ashland, which makes it one of the reasons I was born there, and it made it the perfect place to hold the memorial. My dear friend Bill also experienced his first honeymoon there—“more expensive than we could afford”—and that was like the icing on the cake.

However, on that hot afternoon of August second, when I rolled up to the hotel on foot, my ballet flats slapping on the sidewalk, I was feeling panic: would the music be OK? Would we get the flowers there? And what of the setting up? The public speaking? Thankfully my amazing nephew Jordan stepped in to help me get the flowers, and then it was all a rush, setting up the tables with programs and bookmarks and the fans I had made from dad’s notes and Topomorpher prints, scattering the Puntini Italian candies dad had loved so (thanks to Bree for ordering them), and setting up the music, trying to have the first actual run through, and being so grateful for Bill’s daughter Ruby for her expertise with musical equipment. Just as we were trying to run through the songs one time all together now, Murray Huggins and his bagpipes arrived, and I realized that whatever the music was like, it was as good as it was going to get.

And so, onto the memorial proper, with Jake Daystar as the leader, and he was awesome,

and Jordan Saturen,

Tom the Magnifcent, (in the back behind Bree the Brave and Misho the Miraculous)

I was nervous about Robert and me doing music, but nervous doesn’t begin to describe it. The event itself was like my wedding in a way, lots of people I love and things happening, but it all passed in a blur, a cacophony of feeling, a madness of emotion. I was so pleased with how the display tables looked, all the books and magazines and scrapbooks I had made,

and the flowers were lovely, including a lovely arrangement from Paula’s sister, but I was stressing about the music.

This stress did not decrease when we played the first song, “Let the Mystery Be,” by Iris Dement, Paula’s pick and a song with some tricky lyrics, but the thing was, although we (me and Robert) had practiced this song many, many times, including how to get folks singing, when we came to that part Robert had one of those on stage brain farts, and, well, I think people thought it was funny and they were very forgiving. I think Robert just stalled out, like the Bus does at the bottom of the hill.

We were very lucky to have people like Paula there to welcome everyone,

and Jake to keep things rolling, and that song (Let the Mystery Be)was the worst musical disaster because the other songs worked well, especially “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac, a nice geologic song for a man who loved to talk landslides.

and we had time to appreciate the losses, the huge losses in the Saturen family.

Jordan Niles, my beloved nephew also spoke, and his speech was very heartfelt and true.

We were also lucky to have my sisters speak, Ariana via Zoom and Bree in person (sorry, no pictures of Bree)

We were also very gifted to hear from Linda Millemann, a poet and bookseller and amazing person, who read a poem I first got to know because it was on my parent’s fridge during dad’s last year, a touch stone I returned to every time I came back to the house to care for Dad while Paula was with her Women’s Group or when I was there to visit after his first bad fall or even while he was dying.

With Linda’s permission, I share that poem here:

The Sacred Ordinary

Each time we meet

we bring the world with us

and how we fare upon it.

I see it in our faces,

the lean of our bodies.

I see it in our eyes.

I hear it in our stories.

The yearn of them.

The declarations of yes!

There are so many ways to do this,

this living, this coming together.

So many ways to twine and bend,

curve and thrust our way

to reach the sun.

Each of us running our races.

Each of us rowing toward shore.

I do not know how we can grow

both stronger and more fragile,

yet we hold the currency of both,

dearly purchased,

signed and witnessed

by each other.

Laying claim to the sacred ordinary

and a brave, persistent love

that becomes the gift

that we receive

and give to one another,

of the many ways to do this,

of this living,

of this life.

Linda Millemann

This poem resonated with me because of the truth of it, that we are always trying to row to that shore, but I love the idea that the ordinary is sacred, for certainly it is: the sacrament of unloading the dishwasher, of teaching the classes, of groceries, cooking, and home repairs, but also because we help those in our family. For me, family includes many people I am not technically related to, like Linda, but I I always hope to live up to her words.

We also got to hear from Murray Hicks and Marty Main, the geologists, and there appearance there would have made my father so happy.

I am so sorry for the open mic getting cut off, but everything was running late, and there was food to eat.

Crowd Shots (an full disclosure–I didn’t take any pictures because you can’t take a picture of what matters, so thanks to those who did)

Posed shots

While people were eating, Robert and I took turns standing out at the Bus, opened in the parking lot next to the ballroom, and I was thrilled to meet and talk to Susan Wrona, my Dad’s longtime therapist. She told me my father had loved me, but this I already knew, and yet it was still wonderful to hear that. Then, like magic, the event was over, and some of us headed back to Paula’s for a picnic, where I got to spend time with family and friends, and shout out to Jess and Leah here

and Trish the Tremendous—but all the time I kept thinking how happy this would have made my Dad, almost imagining him there in his Hawaiian shirt and Panama hat, for Paula had suggested Hawaiian shirts as the attire, and some folks were even wearing Dad’s Hawaiian shirts, and if he was a ghost at this party, I didn’t feel that; he was more like a presence there, a feeling, what is left when the person you love is gone.