~from Ami

We buried Brett’s grandmother, Dovie “Jewell” Reeves, today. Jewell, whose only two edible dishes were chicken and dumplings and vegetable soup, who loved Pepsi (flat or fizzy), who was the baby of eleven children, who sewed huge, beautiful quilts by hand up until a year ago, who contributed Limestone’s news to the Newton County Times as a teenager, who rests now in the Dutch Mills cemetery beside her husband where the pines on the hill overlook rows of headstones new and old.

Limestone is a town that really isn’t anymore. Both of Brett’s grandparents came out of that valley in Newton County, Arkansas, one of the poorest and most beautiful counties in the state. There’s a dirt road that leads down through the hills into Limestone, meandering through abandoned homeplaces, pasturelands brimming with wildflower, rotting storefronts, and family burial grounds. Read Donald Harington’s novels to understand what life was like in Newton County. I’m in love with the nostalgia of the place, the strong aura of the past that hangs thick as smoke over the valley, the no-nonsense people that settled those hills.

This was a family with roots. As I am rootless and don’t claim anyplace as “home,” I tend to cling to the sturdy family tree on Brett’s side of the family. I listened to the preacher today reminding us of the 96 years that Jewell had, listening from the second pew in the church where I was baptized, where my dad was youth pastor, where I used to crawl in the windows after school to practice singing, where I met my future husband. Listening to the things that my husband’s grandmother accomplished in her life. We are bereft, indeed, at the loss of Jewel Reeves and, fifteen years ago, her husband Vern Reeves. Two amazing people.

Then I realized that my son, alone, is the one who carries their name. Zack Reeves is the sole descendent of this couple who will bear the surname into the future. Brett's dad and Brett were the only sons born into the direct line. I thought about Zack’s character, his willing to sacrifice, his joy, his sarcasm, his out-and-out friendliness. It’s them. It’s Brett’s grandparents that live through him. It’s a part of them in his veins- their history, their blood, their Arkansas.

Goodbye, Jewell. I have your quilt tucked across my bed. I’ll keep watch over your great-grandson, and your name.