one can tell me how this name came to be. There are no hills here; it could be said that they are lost, although no one can say where they went.
You’ll travel past the Old Yard section of the cemetery, where the stones are crumbling, their markings faded and illegible. Some dates stick out still, reminders of impossible times—1852, 1864, 1876, 1902. But if you continue past those, you’ll see a form that sticks out above other stones. If you stop your car, get out, and walk toward the west end of the cemetery, the form comes into sharper focus. It’s as tall as a normal man, but much smaller than the man it’s supposed to represent. Nothing in this world could be as tall as him.
Stone wings surround a form that always causes me to ache. Gray hands reaching out. Head slightly bowed, the eyes cast down. Gray hair, falling in waves onto smooth shoulders, forever frozen. An angel, you see. An angel watching the ground beneath her. She’s beautiful, even if she is made of stone. If you lean down, you’ll see words below her perfect feet, carved in fine, clear writing. Here, finally, in this place, is where you will find my father:
EDWARD BENJAMIN GREEN
“BIG EDDIE”
BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER
MAY 27 1960—MAY 31 2007
Fifteen words. Fifteen words is all there is to describe the man who was my father. Fifteen words are all that is left of him. Fifteen words that do nothing. They do nothing to show what kind of man he was. They do nothing to show how when he was happy, his green eyes lit up like fireworks. They do nothing to show how heavy his arm felt when he’d drop it on my shoulder as we walked. They do nothing to show the lines that would form on his forehead when he concentrated. They do nothing to show the immensity of his heart. The vastness that was his soul. Those fifteen words say nothing.
The only time my mother and I ever really quarreled in our lives, with any heat behind it, was deciding what his marker would say. She wanted it to be simple, to the point, like the man himself. He wouldn’t want the superfluous, she told me. He didn’t need more.
I railed against her for this, anger consuming me like fire. How dare you! I shouted. How dare she keep it so short? How could she not make it go on and on and on until those who made such markers would have to harvest an entire mountain for there to be enough room to say what he was, what my father had stood for in his life, all that he had accomplished? How could anyone understand the measure of a man when those fifteen words said nothing about him?
She watched me with an angry hurt that I tried to ignore. My throat felt raw, my heart pounding in my chest. My blood roared in my ears. My eyes were wet. My hands clenched at my sides. Never before had I felt such anger. Such betrayal.
The measure of a man, she said finally, is not the words that mark his end, but everything he’s done since his beginning.
She walked out of the room and we never discussed it again.
But she knows. Those fifteen words?
They do nothing.
The angel who watches over him must feel this is enough, though, because she never has anything to add. She just stands there over him. Watching. Waiting.
Sometimes I wonder what she is waiting for.
Most out-of-towners who pull into Big Eddie’s Gas And Convenience will
probably expect a man with a name such as Big Eddie to walk out, larger than life, a massive presence that cannot be ignored.
They can’t know that Big Eddie died when his truck ran off the road and flipped into the Umpqua. What they’ll find instead is a short man, just recently twenty-one years of age. Most people in Roseland have a problem believing I came from Big Eddie’s loins, given my size. I was small for my age as a kid, and I’m small for my age now. But any words to the contrary about who I came from were always put to rest when people saw my eyes. Big Eddie’s eyes, they always said. Emeralds. Bright, like fireworks. There is no question I am my father’s son, even if physically the rest of me takes after my mother. I’m small, like her. Our coloring is the same—light skin, brown hair that curls