You Can Go Home Again

Dad and Mom -- November 30, 1957

You probably won't be surprised to learn that Kansas wasn't actually an art destination for me. While I did find some great art, the real purpose of my trip was to bury some of my father's ashes and to reconnect with family I hadn't seen for almost 40 years. The last time I'd been to Kansas was circa 1983 when I joined Mom at a family reunion after I graduated from college. 

Mom and Dad met in Wichita when she was a newly minted nurse and he was a salesman for a trucking services company. Dad's roommate was a doctor who thought the two of them just might hit it off. Yes, they met on a blind date. Mom was getting cold feet, but her roommate said, "You never know. He might be your knight in shining armor riding up on a white horse." Dad came to pick her up that night in a borrowed white cadillac. They married within months. 

High School Graduation Photo

Wichita was quite a metropolis compared to Burns, Kansas where Mom grew up. But Burns did have schools in the day. A cousin told me Mom's siblings had to either walk the mile and a half to school or ride a horse. Suzanne and I are in agreement that there's no way Mom got on a horse, and we doubt she walked either. Knowing her, she finagled a ride somehow. 

Some other cousins were in town burying their sister-in-law's ashes, and our family turned out to see off someone most of them had never met. That's just the kind of people they are. They hosted a lunch post-service at the Burns Community Center. It was pretty fancy given the town's current population is 296. (The big news was that a pizza place opened recently.)  It's hard to describe how wonderful it was to see these people after so many years. Not surprisingly, my emotions ran high. And as a bonus I got to see the high school graduation photos of my mother and all but one of her siblings. (Posters with photos of senior classes members from 1930 something to the early '60s were the lone decor of the community center.) 

Steve, Molly, Grace and Traver Vestring

Mom was a menopause baby, and ten years separated her from her closest sibling. Her oldest sibling was 22 years her senior. I was ten and Suzanne was seven when we left Kansas for Panama City. So Suzanne and I never really knew our first cousins. I recognized all of them, though, and felt connected. My second cousins -- Rob, Annie, Tex and Steve -- were my age, though, and we played together when we were kids. It was especially great to see them and to welcome the newest kids to the Vestring family -- Grace (age 5) and Traver (almost 3).  I went to the rodeo with them, and they were raring to go in their cowboy hats and boots. If you can believe it, Traver is wearing one of his father's shirts from when he was a kid.  Too adorable. 

Hard to believe this is the best photo
of the bunch -- The Crists circa 1964

The family made sure my social calendar was filled, and one night I had dinner in Wichita with my cousin Vicki and two of her kids. She asked if I'd like to visit the church where my parents were married. Well, yes. It turns out that it's more or less the family church, with numerous Vestring baptisms, weddings and funerals having taken place there. I recognized the altar right away from the wedding photos. We also swung by the duplex they first lived in and the house Suzanne and I first called home. 

And now it's time for a family story. When Mom and Dad were bringing Suzanne from the hospital, they asked me if I wanted to hold her in the back seat on the way home. (This was apparently before car seats were a thing.) I didn't quite understand what was happening -- in my defense, I was only three -- but I apparently was quite disappointed when I opened the blanket to find a baby instead of snacks. What can I say? 

Back to the primary purpose of my trip -- to bury some of Dad's ashes. When Mom passed away in early 2020, one of our cousins took a small urn of her ashes back to Kansas to bury with the family. (Their primary resting spot is in Panama City.)  Both Suzanne and I were overcome when we saw the photo of the burial spot. We knew our parents had a baby that died at birth, but it was not something we really talked about. When they sent the picture to show us where they had buried the ashes --- on our brother's grave -- it was a huge shock. We'd never seen the gravestone so we didn't know Mom had given birth the day before her birthday. Nor did we know he was named after our grandfather and Dad. My parents' loss had suddenly become very real. 

Now Mom and Dad's ashes rest with the remains of our brother. Mom's parents rest by their side, and siblings and other relatives are nearby. As I put the ashes in the ground, our cousins told stories about my parents. They were loved. I was -- and am -- simultaneously heartbroken and joyful that my parents and my brother are together.  As ridiculous as it might sound, I hadn't expected the depth of my emotion. 

Also unexpected was the way our family welcomed me back as if it hadn't been nearly four decades. What I thought would be a one-and-done trip back to Kansas turned into something else entirely. We're talking about a cousins' reunion for next summer. Sure, we are very different people. But we have the same blood running through our veins, and somehow that's enough. Sometimes you can go home again.