By Michaella Thornton
A friend tells me it’s not uncommon for librarians to visit other libraries on their travels. I smile at the thought. Whenever I travel, I visit cemeteries. Dvořák’s tomb in Prague. Keats’ grave in Rome. Mother Jones’ monument in Mt. Olive, Illinois. Stonehenge.
My profession isn’t one that necessitates an interest in the dead, but I feel at peace in cemeteries, wandering among the the Mediterranean Cyprus and pomegranate trees, reveling in the peaceful absence of crowds, and palming my ever-present, mid-life realization that our lives are so, so short. That we must, as Mary Oliver reminds us, “Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.”
When I was in my late teens and early 20s visiting my grandparents in Clinton, Missouri, I would join my granddad on his morning walks in Englewood Cemetery. We would walk in shaded, serene southern Missouri bliss. Sometimes we discussed his well-tended roses, what I was learning in college, the weather, life, and catching crappie. Often times we walked in silence, holding hands, gravel crunching underfoot as we walked. I held onto his one uncrippled hand, the left one not destroyed in World War II.
His hands were so warm, so comforting. We are held so lovingly, so openly only so many times in our lives, I think.
Twelve years ago, my grandfather died. I was 33; he was 87. He was the only man in my family who loved me for who I was, who I am. I miss him every single day. It’s hard sometimes in the moment to understand the weight of the gifts we are given. My granddad’s love of education, travel, and finishing a job you started are passions I hold too.
I called my grandfather once from the beaches of Normandy, a grave site in its own right, a place he knew as a young man. Like the walks we used to take in the cemetery, we stood in silence on the phone, him in Missouri, me in France, this highfalutin granddaughter with big dreams and a big heart calling to tell her granddad that she loved him, that she now understood a little bit better how scared he must have been, how brave he was.
Together, we listened to the waves of the English Channel, our breath, the wind, his tears.
Luck would have it that the timing of my last column for Reckon Review would be, of course, the day after the 2024 Presidential election. I write my fond farewell, for now, on Halloween. My sugared-up seven-year-old daughter, who is named after my granddad’s beloved mother, is nestled in her bed, fast asleep. Of course, she will wake too early. He would’ve gotten a kick out of her sass and charm and the way she starts a story with the phrase, “Let me tell you…”
I like to think about what he would’ve thought of my only child had he lived to meet her. I like to think he would’ve loved her like he loved me, and me him.
I’m stepping back from writing these columns so I may better focus on writing and finishing a weird, lusty novel I’m hellbent on publishing by the time I turn 50. It’s time for me to finish a project I love and believe in. It’s time to prove to myself that I am, in fact, a disciplined writer who can sit her butt in the chair and write like my life won’t always be here. Like the ethereal thoughts I’d like to capture, are worthy of a place on the page, in a book.
It’s truly been an honor and joy writing these dispatches and having you as readers, my silent, dear companions. While anyone who knows me knows I love to write and talk and tell funny stories, the intimacy I love most of all is the love it takes to hold each other beyond words.
Read more of Kella’s work here at Reckon.
Michaella Thornton learned how to bake at the hips of her mother and her grandmother Anna Lee. A lifetime ago, she baked professionally before realizing baker’s hours require early mornings. Kella’s prose has been featured in Brevity, Essay Daily, Fractured Lit, Hobart After Dark, Reckon Review, New South, Southeast Review, among others, and her writing has been nominated for a James Beard award and Best of the Net. Many moons ago, Kella received her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Arizona. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her daughter.