The first day of the new year was spent, predictably enough, cleaning. I really got a chance to do some deep cleaning today. I was able to work on my indoor plants. We were going to have supper at my daughter's house, the traditional pork and sauerkraut, and so I didn't have to cook. We stayed up until midnight (yay us!), woke up late enough that our late breakfast allowed us to skip lunch.
Speaking of pork and sauerkraut, yesterday morning, I ran Mattie's pork loin and the sauerkraut up to her. I knew that they would probably be away to their neighbor's funeral, but I figured that they would have a kid or two at home.
It was a warm morning for the last day of December. I tossed my coat in the back seat but didn't wear it. Their road though. Oh my gosh, it was a mud hole. As I approached their neighbor's house, I saw buggies parked, scores of them, surely over a hundred of them, along with vans and vehicles with license plates from New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It looked like things were beginning to break up because there was a long line of buggies in front of me. Loooooooong line. It appeared that they stagger their departure so that you don't have a line of a hundred buggies all on the road at the same time. I suppose it takes time to catch their horses from the pasture, lead them back to the buggies and hitch them up.
There was a truck who was caught up in that strange traffic jam, just like me, and they seemed a little impatient. I had no intention of passing. The mud on that road is slick, as slick as any ice. I was afraid of the ditches. I was also afraid of passing that long black line of buggies and not being able to merge back into the lane should I need to. I would never forgive myself if I hit a horse and buggy, and it does happen.
The truck did pass. I stayed in place. After a time though, the buggies began to space themselves out and so I did dare to pass them just four or five at a time.
Amos, Ruben, and Rudy met me on the porch. I handed over the pork loin and the sauerkraut. The kids are shy without their parents there, but Amos did ask how much they owed. I said the slip was in there, but not to worry about it. We would settle up with Mattie or Levi when things had calmed down in their neighborhood.
I headed back down the hill, picking my way slowly, meeting buggy after buggy after buggy. Each buggy waved, and I raised my hand to them in return, feeling part of community in a most superficial way. I did not know Sam other than to wave to him and his wife when they were porch sitting on summer evenings, but you have to appreciate the fact that somehow, word of his death had spread across their community and outside it to other Amish communities as well. They came from everywhere to remember him and to offer their condolences to his family.
I studied the solemn faces in those buggies I met going down the hill, both hands firmly on the wheel but raising my left fingers from the wheel to acknowledge their waves.
They are very stoic about life and death. It is the way it is. I remember when little David was so ill, and Levi was beginning to understand that he wasn't going home anytime soon. He called early in the morning and asked me if I could run to Mattie's mother's house and ask her if she would come with me to Pittsburgh so that he could go home to his eight other kids.
When I pulled up in grandma's driveway, she met me at the door. Her face was expressionless, but her hands were clasped tightly together. Still she calmly asked me what I had heard. I realized instantly that she thought that I was there to tell her bad news. I was quick to tell her that it was okay, that Mattie just needed her mother with her at the hospital. Her relief was palpable, and two grandmas stood on the porch in the early morning understanding each other's deepest fear.
Where there is life, there is death, and they come together to acknowledge the loss, and comfort each other as they accept God's will. And then it is done. They get in their buggies and head back home.
