The Man from Alarka
This Sunday my grandfather passed away. He was 91 years old and died peacefully in his sleep. My brother and I made the trek up to Alarka, the small community of my Woodard ancestors nestled in the thick of Swain County near Bryson City. This is probably the most rural area of the state, and it is certainly the poorest, most of the county is taken up by the Smokey Mountain National Park and there are no jobs, and nothing to tax. There is a road in Swain County that literally goes no where, as the state abandoned it years ago and now stands as a monument to the forgotten place in the Blue Ridge. It is a densely wooded set of mountains and hills. Most of Cherokee is in Swain County, and not much else. When the mad man Eric Rudolph hid from the government for years in the mountains of NC, it was in places like Alarka. This is the wikitravel entry for Swain to give you some perspective. http://wikitravel.org/en/Swain_County
The Appalachians are the oldest mountains in the world, worn down from millenia of exposure to the elements; they now bend and curl and stoop like old men hugging close to the earth. You can feel their age as you ride their backs. Swain feels like the oldest place in the Blue Ridge. It feels like the last place touched by our civilized ways, the oldest place on Earth.
Driving up there you can feel a change. As you drive up Old Fort Mountain towards Black Mountain and Asheville the area is open and you can see the beautiful Appalachians all around you, but as you go deeper, far West of Canton the hills begin to envelope you, closer and closer together and you can only see what is nearby. Fewer truck stops, and gas stations are found along the way, until you get to Swain and it almost disappears. It seems pristine, and untouched by time but appearances can be deceiving.
There are new houses on Alarka. Floridians have come up and bought the land of our neighbors and our cousins, and our uncles. There is almost nothing left of my grandfather's legacy now but a small sliver of land next to the cold mountain stream. My Uncles fought and conjoled and swindled and took gave and bartered and sold our legacy. My father took nothing. Now there is nothing left to take.
They have built summer homes in their suburban styles and it is quite different now. Overlooking the little gap where my family is from stood a tall hill upon the face of which was a rocky outcropping that to my young eyes looked like a tiger's eye peaking out from the fur like trees. There was something comforting about that eye. The mountain was watching us. I drew it many times from my grandparent's place. It is overgrown now and you cannot see it. The eye is shut now and cannot see, perhaps it closed its eye unwilling to accept the change that has come upon its face. What does a mountain dream I wonder? What does the sleeping eye see?
I was never what you would call close to my grandfather. I cannot recall many conversations I had with him. He was a man who did not display emotions openly. He was a quiet man, a decent man, a man who had lived in the same rural community his entire life except for four years when we was fighting for his country oversees. He had lived a good life, and he was no doubt in a better place. I did not suspect I would be very upset or broken at the service.
My father left here so long ago. He was the one child who left to seek his fortune to Valdese, Rutherford College, Drexel and other such bustling municipalities. In Alarka they regard us as "city folk". My brother and I are regarded with suspicion and curiosity. We are not close to the others who stayed. At the funeral home we stood awkwardly in the front, only a few people choosing to view my grandfather in mass. This was a private thing, each of the many Woodard men and their few women choosing to grieve privately even among their kin. There were polite smiles and stiff greetings. The introversion was so palpable it threatened to collapse in on itself and pull us down into a pit of shyness, but this death was so large it would not allow that. We were forced to be together. Five brothers. Ten grandsons and their wives and children. Five daughters and their families. A few assorted friends. My grandfather was the last of his family, his brothers and sisters all gone.
My father has four brothers. There are five families, and 14 or 15 children, most of them male (the y chromosome is strong in my family). The ten grandsons were the pallbearers, including myself. Other than my grandfather, and the ministers, and the ushers, my brother and I were the only ones who wore suits. We were the only ones who owned any. We left our jackets off, so we wouldn't look like the pompous jack-asses that they suspect we are, and maybe they are right about that. They are a quiet, and stoic group of men. No men cried during the service. There were few tears. They do not show emotions, Woodards. They are mountain men, and bare their grief, love, sadness, and horror internally. My grandfather was the same way.
I learned during the funeral service that my grandfather was a war hero. During WWII he served for four years, three months and one day. He was awarded five bronze stars and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal. He never spoke about his medals, and my father didn't even know he had received them.
The funeral was on top of the mountain. You literally can not go any higher, and it is only a half a mile from the childhood home of my father, on a small sliver of land. The sun was out, and it was an achingly beautiful day. Seven VFW men in uniform, mostly Cherokee by descent were there, and fired off shots into the air in solute to their fallen comrade. An American flag draped the casket which they folded up and gave to my grandmother, married to him for 64 years. They played taps.
I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, and the harsh realization that this was such a perfect and beautiful funeral. When my father passes it will only be he and myself to carry the casket. When we go, their will be none. The Woodard family will not die with us, but there was something else that passed when my grandfather passed. Something I cannot name. Something to do with taps played on a mountain top on the most beautiful day of the year. Something about Ten grandsons carrying their grandfather to his eternal rest in the bosom of the mountain where he lived his entire life. It was in that moment that the full brunt of my grandfather's passing hit me, when my father's loss hit me. There was something intangible there that none of us even suspected, and now is gone forever. No one suspected what the passing of such a quiet man of dignity would mean, or what we could expect from a future with simple men like him are gone.
Even now I can barely contain my tears. The kind of greatness that we aspire to be was truly embodied in this man and his generation and it is passing from the world, into the West forever. I am still wrestling with what it all means and cannot help but wonder if I am worthy to be buried there with my family on top of Alarka Mountain.
And if so, if I am buried there just next to the sky, who will carry my old bones to the bosom of my ancestral home?
The Appalachians are the oldest mountains in the world, worn down from millenia of exposure to the elements; they now bend and curl and stoop like old men hugging close to the earth. You can feel their age as you ride their backs. Swain feels like the oldest place in the Blue Ridge. It feels like the last place touched by our civilized ways, the oldest place on Earth.
Driving up there you can feel a change. As you drive up Old Fort Mountain towards Black Mountain and Asheville the area is open and you can see the beautiful Appalachians all around you, but as you go deeper, far West of Canton the hills begin to envelope you, closer and closer together and you can only see what is nearby. Fewer truck stops, and gas stations are found along the way, until you get to Swain and it almost disappears. It seems pristine, and untouched by time but appearances can be deceiving.
There are new houses on Alarka. Floridians have come up and bought the land of our neighbors and our cousins, and our uncles. There is almost nothing left of my grandfather's legacy now but a small sliver of land next to the cold mountain stream. My Uncles fought and conjoled and swindled and took gave and bartered and sold our legacy. My father took nothing. Now there is nothing left to take.
They have built summer homes in their suburban styles and it is quite different now. Overlooking the little gap where my family is from stood a tall hill upon the face of which was a rocky outcropping that to my young eyes looked like a tiger's eye peaking out from the fur like trees. There was something comforting about that eye. The mountain was watching us. I drew it many times from my grandparent's place. It is overgrown now and you cannot see it. The eye is shut now and cannot see, perhaps it closed its eye unwilling to accept the change that has come upon its face. What does a mountain dream I wonder? What does the sleeping eye see?
I was never what you would call close to my grandfather. I cannot recall many conversations I had with him. He was a man who did not display emotions openly. He was a quiet man, a decent man, a man who had lived in the same rural community his entire life except for four years when we was fighting for his country oversees. He had lived a good life, and he was no doubt in a better place. I did not suspect I would be very upset or broken at the service.
My father left here so long ago. He was the one child who left to seek his fortune to Valdese, Rutherford College, Drexel and other such bustling municipalities. In Alarka they regard us as "city folk". My brother and I are regarded with suspicion and curiosity. We are not close to the others who stayed. At the funeral home we stood awkwardly in the front, only a few people choosing to view my grandfather in mass. This was a private thing, each of the many Woodard men and their few women choosing to grieve privately even among their kin. There were polite smiles and stiff greetings. The introversion was so palpable it threatened to collapse in on itself and pull us down into a pit of shyness, but this death was so large it would not allow that. We were forced to be together. Five brothers. Ten grandsons and their wives and children. Five daughters and their families. A few assorted friends. My grandfather was the last of his family, his brothers and sisters all gone.
My father has four brothers. There are five families, and 14 or 15 children, most of them male (the y chromosome is strong in my family). The ten grandsons were the pallbearers, including myself. Other than my grandfather, and the ministers, and the ushers, my brother and I were the only ones who wore suits. We were the only ones who owned any. We left our jackets off, so we wouldn't look like the pompous jack-asses that they suspect we are, and maybe they are right about that. They are a quiet, and stoic group of men. No men cried during the service. There were few tears. They do not show emotions, Woodards. They are mountain men, and bare their grief, love, sadness, and horror internally. My grandfather was the same way.
I learned during the funeral service that my grandfather was a war hero. During WWII he served for four years, three months and one day. He was awarded five bronze stars and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal. He never spoke about his medals, and my father didn't even know he had received them.
The funeral was on top of the mountain. You literally can not go any higher, and it is only a half a mile from the childhood home of my father, on a small sliver of land. The sun was out, and it was an achingly beautiful day. Seven VFW men in uniform, mostly Cherokee by descent were there, and fired off shots into the air in solute to their fallen comrade. An American flag draped the casket which they folded up and gave to my grandmother, married to him for 64 years. They played taps.
I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, and the harsh realization that this was such a perfect and beautiful funeral. When my father passes it will only be he and myself to carry the casket. When we go, their will be none. The Woodard family will not die with us, but there was something else that passed when my grandfather passed. Something I cannot name. Something to do with taps played on a mountain top on the most beautiful day of the year. Something about Ten grandsons carrying their grandfather to his eternal rest in the bosom of the mountain where he lived his entire life. It was in that moment that the full brunt of my grandfather's passing hit me, when my father's loss hit me. There was something intangible there that none of us even suspected, and now is gone forever. No one suspected what the passing of such a quiet man of dignity would mean, or what we could expect from a future with simple men like him are gone.
Even now I can barely contain my tears. The kind of greatness that we aspire to be was truly embodied in this man and his generation and it is passing from the world, into the West forever. I am still wrestling with what it all means and cannot help but wonder if I am worthy to be buried there with my family on top of Alarka Mountain.
And if so, if I am buried there just next to the sky, who will carry my old bones to the bosom of my ancestral home?