Riding on thoughts today... head is filled with memories of a cousin who passed six years ago today.
He was a cowboy with every fiber of his being from hat to boots and everything in-between.
Dee was a rowdy one.
My mother remembered a little nephew who would rope a stuffed toy and wrestle with all his cousins til they had more than they could stand. Never still for very long. She told of how he'd gotten hold of a bottle of baby aspirin as a child and chewed up the whole bottle full... then as grandmother tried to rake the pills out of his mouth, he bit her finger. They had to give him some epicac syrup to get the aspirin back up. Poor fellow. He was a boisterous little handful when he was little.
I remember him as an older cousin of mine. He and his brother Bob were always doing something.
I don't recall him ever being inside too much... except for meal time.
Then he'd be back out on horseback, or in his pick-up, or running the greyhounds chasing rabbits, or doing one of a hundred jobs that the ranch needed done.
Always in motion.
His skin was forever tanned, his hands calloused and rough, and he wore jeans, boots, hat and a shirt usually covered with whatever he was working on that day.
He had sort of sleepy looking eyes, dark hair and thick black eyelashes to the envy of every girl.
Usually he was smoking with a cigarette casually hanging from his mouth.
It was all just part of who he was.
I recall a few times when he'd stay in the house with all the little cousins.
He played a few games of checkers with grandpa and maybe watch a little football on TV.
But mostly, he was outside.
I think Dee was most in his element there.
Under the wide Texas skies, wind in his hair, riding his horse chasing after a calf or steer with a rope in hand.
Highly skilled in roping. I remember as a kid when I used to go and visit my grandparents, he would be there and would rope me as I walked through the living room.
Never missed, much to my disappointment.
I sure miss him.
Odd how you miss a person a little more with each passing year.
Somehow I thought as time passed, it would lessen the missing, but it seems to have gone the opposite direction.
I remember the funeral as if it was only a month ago.
We drove to Silverton on Friday night and got there to see my daughter Kimberly playing in the band with a little group of college kids who came from Texas Tech in Lubbock to watch the Silverton Owls take on the Kress Kangaroos. The whole town was buzzing with the Goin' Band coming to their game.
At grandmother's house we saw cousins and relatives from everywhere.
My cousin Bob, Dee's brother, had not slept in days.
The two of them had always been buddies... never too far away from each other.
And now...
The two Sons of Thunder had been separated.
No more rodeos or riding together, or swimming or practicing roping... no more anything.
Dee was always quiet in a crowd, but put him on a horse, and he was poetry in motion.
He and Bob had been around horses and cattle all their lives.
Probably put in a saddle before they could walk.
I can't remember how many summers my sisters and I spent up there on that ranch just watching the two of them rope and ride.
How I loved them for all they could do.
I was some uncoordinated city kid just standing at the fence amazed.
But somehow, they loved me as the greenhorn I was.
I was hesitant to go back at first. I'd grown fat and older...
And yet as I walked into the room with all my relatives, I was overwhelmed by all the warm hugs and hearty hellos and a dozen people gathered around me waiting to catch up.
How foolish I was to forget the love there just waiting for me to walk in the door.
I didn't want to leave.
But finally it was very late, and I would not take a bed away from the family members who were more closely related to my cousin.
So we drove over to Plainview and stayed in a hotel.
We got up the next day and drove back to Silverton to be at the Baptist church at noon.
The church was full of Dee's relatives from both sides of the family. It was hard to tell who was family and who was not related, but one of his friends. All looked so close to the same. As natural as cousins on every side.
I saw my uncle Walter there, Dee's dad. He looked nearly untouched by time.
Maybe a little more silver in the hair he had left, maybe a couple more wrinkles, but the same smile and quiet gentlemanly manners I'd always known. A little older. A little more tired.
He wore an older, gray, western-cut suit which seemed to be almost a part of him.
Walter was born in the old house out there on the ranch. He said his mother died there. Said he guessed he's be there until he died too.
The service started and it was simple and beautiful.
There were flowers arranged with Dee's saddle and horse blanket and a lariat on top of the casket.
Seemed to be sleeping there among us, thick eyelashes closed forever in rest.
His har was still dark as a raven, but bits of it had lightened due to all the years under the sun.
His resemblence to Walter was striking. Older. More aged.
His typical black cowboy hat was on top of his hands.
At the bottom of the casket were his boots surrounded by more flowers.
Beside him sort of sticking up at an angle from the side was his fishing pole with flowers and vines all twined around it.
It was beautiful, but seemed out of place to see him lying there so still and quiet.
The service began with one fellow doing the eulogy.
It was pretty good, but he was kind of new and nervous.
A second fellow came up after the first, and he seemed to know everyone better.
He talked about Dee's life with his mom and dad and his brother and sisters and grandmother.
He said, it's not natural to lose your son, brother, nephew or grandson like this... but then he spoke of the comfort we find beyond what this life has to offer us.
Very fitting. Dee was never one to try and live beyond the rustic cowboy he was inside.
Nothing fancy. Nothing dressed up. Plain and simple.
Lastly, an older cowboy gentleman stepped up with a guitar in hand.
He sang
And then he sang Beulah Land
Simple.
Guitar and song.
Nothing else.
Just like it was supposed to be... the way Dee would have wanted it to be.
Just like him. Simple, plain cowboy.
And as he was singing it was thundering and raining too.
Nearly seemed as if it was planned the way the thunder would sound just after the preacher said something fitting, and how the rain stopped as the casket was loaded and while we went to the grave site.
And just as we'd gathered around with the last words, it began to sprinkle again.
During the talking it would thunder now and again and I'd smile thinking of Dee riding by us all again on his new horse in the clouds with lightning in the skies... hooves thundering past us as he rode on the wind.
It was less a good-bye, and more a see-you-later.
I can hardly wait.
Miss you Dee.
Ride on.
"I'm kind of homesick for a country
to which I've never been before.
No sad good-byes will there be spoken,
and time won't matter anymore.
Chorus:
Beulah Land, I'm longing for you
And some day on thee I'll stand.
There my home shall be eternal.
Beulah Land... sweet Beulah Land.
I'm looking now across that river
to where my faith is gonna end in sight.
There's just a few more days to labor,
then I'll take my heavenly flight.
Chorus."
"Oh the place where I worship is the wide open spaces,
built by the hand of the Lord.
Where the trees of the forest are the pipes of an organ,
and the breeze play an amen chord.
Oh the stars are the candles and they light up the mountains;
mountains are altars of God.
Oh the place where I worship is the wide open spaces
built by the hand of the Lord.
There's a carpet of green and a sky blue roof above
And I'm welcome there alone or with the one I love
In your heart take a good look; if you follow the good book.
You're sure to find your reward
Oh the place where I worship is the wide open spaces
built by the hand of the Lord."
