Restless

This week I’ve spent time at the cemetery where my folks are buried. Decoration is next Sunday, and it takes a while to get the old cemetery in shape.

It’s a peaceful place most of the time. My mom, dad and brothers are buried at the top of the hill, close to the service road that encircles the graveyard. I was there one evening this week, sitting on the tailgate of my truck, giving them updates about what’s happening in my life.

I sat there for a while in silence, listening to the pines whispering to the wind, and the sound of birds getting ready to turn in for the evening. Off in the distance, I heard a freight train blowing to warn drivers to approach the crossings with care.

The sound of trains moving eastward and westward makes this a perfect place for my dad and my brothers, who all had an undercurrent of restlessness coursing through their souls.

In our younger days, whenever I went anywhere with my older brother, Neil, he always walked quickly like he had an appointment with destiny and was running late. When he graduated from high school, he moved up north for a time to put some distance between himself and the hills and the hollows of Alabama

He later moved to California to see if he could find what he was looking for out there but ended up moving back here, where he married and raised a family. He seemed happy and he loved his kids, but he died young at 50 years old and I’m not sure if he ever found what he was looking for.

My younger brother, Darren, seemed even more restless than Neil. He left home soon after high school and moved to Birmingham, Atlanta, and later to Houston, Texas. He also died too young at the age of 33.

My dad seemed more restless than either of my brothers. He spent very little time at home. On weekends, he’d be on the Warrior River, or he’d be driving on the back roads in his pickup visiting with his old friends. It was hard for him to sit still for any length of time. He always seemed to be searching, but he never said why.

Even though this next part happened over 55 years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday.

It was late one evening after the sun had slipped below the horizon to the west. We’d finished supper, and he went out to the front porch to sip the last of his iced tea and smoke a coffin-nail, as he called them.

As he sat, the chains of the old wooden swing creaked and groaned. I crawled up into his lap to watch the lightning bug show that had just gotten underway. Off in the distance we heard the sound of an old freight train blowing for a nearby crossing. It chugged down a notch to change gears, but to me it sounded like it was taking a breath.

He said, “Joe Ab (don’t ask me why he called me that), I’m gonna ride that train one of these days.”

I was too young then to realize how deep that seam of restlessness ran through his soul, but looking back, I get a sense of just how much he longed to be somewhere else at times.

Neither Dad nor my brothers ever had an opportunity to travel that much in their lifetimes. My prayer, as I sat on the tailgate of my pickup, was that they are now wandering the universe like hobos.