All I have left of you now are the memories of you and a handful of Starlight mints you gave to me in December of 2018. I knew it might be the last moment we shared and I’ve stored them in a ziploc bag in a drawer next to my bed ever since you placed them in my hand — straight from your pocket, some without their packaging.
Starlight, although obviously a candy brand, means “the light that comes from the stars.” I’d like to believe you’re that light now.
When I finally got the call, I threw my children in the car and drove the twelve hours required to feel as if being there would make a difference. Coincidentally, I chose as my trip soundtrack, to listen to the translation of The Book of Eels, by Swedish journalist Patrik Svensson. He spoke about mystery and wonder and history and home and life and love and then death. All of the things you have come to represent.
Listening to the audio version doesn’t allow for underlining all of the great lines in pencil (nor does being behind the wheel, had I the hard copy). I can’t remember the line verbatim, but I believe Svensson said something near-cliche like “if you don’t know where you came from, you won’t know where you’re going.” I chewed on this for a few hundred miles, realizing that it only applies to those who eventually go back home, like Svensson’s European eel, anguilla anguilla. For the European eel is born in the Sargasso Sea and will eventually return there, after hundreds if not thousands of miles of swimming away, before it determines it’s time to go home.
If you were too young and left too early and don’t go back home as an adult, or don’t go back often, do you need to know where you came from? Does knowing your Swedish roots, or any of your familial roots help you get to where you’re supposed to go, even if that direction doesn’t point back home? Is it supposed to point back home? Home starts to become elusive, particularly after a death in the family and another 10 hours left of interstate heading east.
We looked through the two large tubs full of photos, cracked frames and negatives, just like when Grandma died six years ago. There was a sense of nostalgia then — so many photos I had never seen before. It provided a sense of relief. A reminder that her 80 years spent raising nine children were full and full of joy. I was relieved when I saw the tubs brought back up from the basement, knowing I’d find memories in there to fill in the cracks of my forty years with you and your nearly 89.
But this time, there was no relief. There weren’t new photos of you. There were only the ones I saw six years ago that had remained in the bucket. The same photos from your 50th wedding anniversary, the same photos from the time I visited with Finn in the Summer of 2011, the same photos of you in attendance at my siblings’ sporting or arts events as they lived on the opposite side of you on a large country block. There were no new memories because I had made so few new ones.
I knew where I came from, but I hadn’t come home.
It’s been hard to sit down and write because there’s nothing new to say. I shared them all when I first realized there would be no new ones and I fumbled to feel right about it ever since. I want to believe that I didn’t let you down by not coming home enough, but I think at this point, the harsher realization is that I let myself down.
I don’t know if being there would have meant we painted any more or you wrote any more and let me read the chapters before you’d finish them. I don’t know that we would have watched bad Westerns or went on walks back to the garden. Or if, as an adult, I would have spent the night on the floor in a sleeping bag. I don’t know… and perhaps that’s the hardest part.
Above: you on the far right in both images
I learned at your funeral that your brother would take bets on you winning fights on the street corner in order for the two of you to get money for the movies.
I learned that you had a football and baseball scholarship to Bowling Green but after an argument with your father, you chose to enter the U.S. Navy instead.
I learned that before your first born daughter had heart surgery in order to live past the age of seven, you bought her a Barbie and took her to the finest restaurant in town for Swedish pancakes.
I learned about family vacations, with you and grandma and your eight kids plus one on the way, with one car and a tent with no poles.
I learned you nailed four bats in one night with a badminton racket so your four daughters weren’t afraid to go to sleep in the dark.
I learned that building sheds and garages and even homes was a family affair (and I’d try my best to recreate that the day after your funeral with my dad and stepmom, brothers, sister and my son when pouring a concrete pad).
I learned you had an older brother who saw a picture of Jesus hanging in his room and told your mother that some day he’d meet him. One morning he didn’t wake up and you believed that was the day he went to meet him.
I learned that you got baptized in 2010 and you pitched in the church softball league until you were 82.
I learned, although I already knew it, that you were loved (and maybe a little feared) by many. That you lived a life that was fuller than most and that you valued your family more than anything else.
There will be no more memories between the two of us. At least not on earth. But to be cliche about it, I promise to always remember where I came from and to look for your light in the stars.
Thank you for this image, Keegan. I will cherish it always.
Dale Norbert Sonney, July 17, 1931 - June 10, 2020. It should be noted, that although age and dementia contributed to his death, so did complications from the coronavirus. Wear a god damn mask, people. And vote them out.