Family Planting

Most Southern families argue over inheritances, and the battles for prized heirlooms, and family treasures can get pretty nasty. But in my family, instead of fighting it out over dear old  Auntie Battle Axe's silver and china, my peeps will hurt someone when it comes to burial plots in the Young Family Cemetery.

You see, the strong line of Southern aristocracy from which I hail, descended from the Young's, who received a large plot of land in an area north west of Zachary, LA. known as the Plains. This property was granted to the family as part of the Spanish Land Grant, and had never been farmed.Thus it became the family burial ground, and for damn near two hundred years,  it's where we've been planting any and all kin folks who are directly descended from the original Young's.

Over the years, trips to the family burial place weren't always the result of a death. Taking care of loved ones grave sites is important, and nothing will get you talked about like a dog worse than letting a family members plot go to ruin. I can still recall the remarks overheard as a child made by aunts and uncles about relatives who didn't tend to their plots. "Just look at those raggedy flowers on Aunt So&so's grave. Dollar store if I ever saw any!" Or,"Oooh wee! Look at So & so's grave sinking like that. I hope the mean bastard ain't coming back up. I couldn't stand him when he was alive!" The biggest outrages that provoked the most heated discussions and comments occurred when someone NOT of Young family descent got planted, and God forbid they end up in a blood members already spoken for plot. Of course we didn't spend a whole lot of time visiting the dead, and our trips weren't regular. Mama didn't care to see her oldest daughter buried there. Martha's child sized headstone was a painful reminder of mama's deepest loss, and heartache, but she made sure to honor her passing with a poinsettia each Christmas, mums on November 1st, and an Easter Lilly each spring.

It is part of my heritage and my birth right, to make Young Family Cemetery my final resting place, and honestly I take great comfort in that. It's a lovely place, with towering, majestic, Live Oaks, Magnolias, and age old Woodville Red Camellias. I have never found is scary, or daunting, but rather peaceful and welcoming, as some of the people I adored most in my life are resting there. Each individual has a unique story, some can boast a life well lived to a ripe old age, like my Nana. Others were cut too short by tragedy, or illness, like my sister Martha, and most recently, my cousin John Poole. Already, three of  the five plots daddy inherited have been claimed, and soon Moe's ashes will join mama, daddy, and Martha, in the plot I've chosen for us next to them, beneath a massive oak. I suppose most people find the idea of determining their final resting place morbid, but I consider myself lucky, because I've inherited my place among my family, and even in death, I will remain close to those I loved most in life.

WWRJD... What Would Robert Johnson Do.... .

I'm by no means a hot shot guitar picker, I can't even remember a single chord from when I did play years ago, so I have no instrument to bring to the cross roads. I have no guitar for the Devil to tune, nothing to bargain with, just one lonely, no talented white girl waiting at the cross roads in my life. Waiting just like Robert Johnson, except I have to make my own choices, the Devil can't even offer what I want in this life.

I guess some folks would call it my "jumping off place", that time in your life where you have to make tough choices, and hard decisions. The welcome party to the adult world, for some, a "do over" for others, but for me it's a renewal. I suppose the "cross roads" moment comes much earlier for the average individual, but as time, and my experiences seem to prove... I damn sure ain't AVERAGE.

The choices in life I've made up to this point have served me well, even getting married at age sixteen, and divorced by eighteen, taught me some hard life lessons earlier than most, but that experience came in quite handy down the road. (Fodder for another blog) Looking back I have little if any regrets. Oh sure, I wish I'd been kinder, nicer, and not said some hatelful things to loved ones now long gone, but so does everyone else. It's human nature. But now as I face the future at age 45 without the support system I had back then, and after survivng a period of grief for my husband that damn near took me with him, I am truly my own counsel, and that sounds scary.  But, I've screwed up enough in the past 45 years that failure doesn't really scare me. I've picked myself up and dusted off the bull shit of whatever situation or circumstance that created it, and kept on going. So, standing here at Nancy's cross roads of What Do I Want, and Where Can I Go, is much better than where I was standing 18 months ago at the corner of WTF!? and This Can't Be Real. Honestly, there are way worse things to make decisions about... believe me.

Now, I'm making choices and decisions on MY terms, for MY benefit, and I like that. I feel pretty good about it, and I realize the only thing that might stop me is ME. My own doubts, and fears about a major life altering change, which when I think about it is rather stupid on my part, because I've already experienced three of the most tumultous events a person can go through, so why should I let this next phase rattle me? If I haven't sold my soul to the Devil by now, I reckon there's no reason to sit and wait here anymore. Then again... I wonder what happened to my old acoustic guitar......