“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let bitterness steal your sweetness.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Three generations of the Stief family reside at the Rockvale Cemetery, a small rolling field on the side of rural Montana Highway 310 between Joliet and Fromberg. It is here that I have attended the funerals of my grandmother Mary, my father Donald, and on this cold day in February, my mother Betty. I watched her casket as it was lifted from the car and carried across the frozen cemetery grounds to what would be her temporary resting place. As the sermon continued on it became increasingly clear I would find no answers on this day. I consciously decided to do what I so often do when I am desperate for meaning, I reached for my camera. I stopped listening and started seeing.
Through the lens, I witnessed my brother, the preacher and a coterie of young men struggle to maintain their balance under the heavy weight of her coffin. I observed the cottonwood trees stark and naked in the clear winter sky, framing us in. I watched the harsh wind batter the small congregation of family and strangers making them draw nearer to one another. I saw clearly for the first time the old man my brother has become, bitter and cold.
The preacher’s final words hung only briefly in the air before they too were lost to the wind. I focused on his thin white hands clutching tight to his black leather bible. His words held no meaning for me. Pleas for redemption were made and ultimately went unanswered by those of us who were the cause for their message. I stayed behind as one by one hands and heads touched my mother in a final farewell. The sadness of this day holds still and I cling to these images even though they offer me no peace. They are merely a testament to time, a time that is now history. A time now to let go.
