All that survives of my grandpa is fragments. His body was cremated and his ashes hidden in a heart-shaped box at my grandma’s house. If you shook the box, it wouldn’t rattle. There isn’t enough of him left. And so it is with what I remember of him. What memories I have are not enough to complete a picture of him in my mind, so I try to sift through what little evidence there is to understand who he was and why I never knew him. I’ve had to sift through the ashes to find reason, meaning, and healing.
—
My first memory of my Grandpa turns out to be from the last time he came to visit. Employed by the US Forest Service, he brought with him a large Smokey the Bear doll. I was so excited—the bear was almost as tall as I was! But after he left, Mom took the bear away. “You can’t play with it,” she said. Before she wrapped it in garbage bags and hid it in the attic, I stole the doll’s wooden shovel. It was a prop; the first time I tried digging with it in the yard, the wooden blade snapped off. I glued it back onto the handle and hid it, afraid my mom would see it and punish me for keeping it. Later, Mom found the shovel in the cupboard and asked what it was from. I pretended I didn’t know.
—
Firefighters visit my elementary school. They distribute stickers, rulers, and comic books. I open mine and see a picture: Smokey the Bear holds a replica of the shovel I broke. He demonstrates burying the ashes left over from a small campfire. Only you can prevent forest fires!
Nothing could have prevented Mount St. Helens from erupting.
—
An earthquake shook the mountain awake the morning of May 18th, 1980. It had slept restlessly and then suddenly, violently, it roared wide awake. In a fit of ash, flames, and smoke, fifty-seven lives were taken by Mount St. Helens. My mom, living in Logan, Utah, heard about it first from a friend because her own newspaper was stolen for the first and only time. A landscape was swallowed in ash and choked, smothered, for many barren years before the land forgave long enough to grant new life.
—
I’m six years old. It’s after my bedtime but I’m hungry. I come downstairs for a snack and see the kitchen light already on. My mom sits at the kitchen table, a pencil in hand and a paper placed before her. “What are you doing up so late?” I ask. She jumps. She always jerks when startled; her eyes fly wide open with an expression of terror, and it scares me every time. I’m careful not to sneak up on her, but sometimes I still catch her unawares. I walk over and rest my head on her shoulder. She tells me not to read what she is writing; it is a private letter. I remind her that I can’t read and ask why she is writing, then. “Burning bridges,” she says.
I didn’t see anything on fire. If I had recognized words, I would have known she was writing to Grandpa. She accused him of abusing her and her sister and warned him to never come near me again.
—
A few years after the mountain’s eruption, my mom returned to the Northwest to work for the US Forest Service at the Mount St. Helen’s visitor’s center. She told international tourists of the destruction caused by the eruption, of the ash that buried the region roundabout. The ravaged land attracted thousands who came to see the collapsed mountain; none stayed to plant trees. Volcanic eruptions were sensationalized as fantastic natural feats; the rape of the land was overlooked or forgotten in the excitement of smoke and lava. For the next decade, the tragedy of Mount St. Helen’s was buried beneath the artificial ashes of baking soda and vinegar that fizzled from science fair volcanoes.
—
I’m a sophomore in high school. A tree falls into our backyard, destroying the neighbor’s fence and narrowly missing our house. There is a thud and the earth trembles. We think a car has hit the telephone pole again, then look out the window and see the cloud of dust. The air is thick with it. Dad opens the back door and steps onto a carpet of needles. I see the culprit lying prostrate, a ponderosa pine over sixty feet tall; heavy, it would have destroyed my bedroom had it tipped any nearer. I cross the flattened fence into the neighbor’s yard and examine the tree’s roots. The roots are dead. The neighbors offer to call a tree removal service. Mom says she will call her brother. He, too, has worked for the U.S. Forest Service and is skilled at tree removal.
My uncle doesn’t come alone. “Stay inside,” my mom tells me. I go to the window above the stairs and look outside. There is an old man standing beside my uncle. His hair is all but gone; brown spots heavily decorate his scalp. An ear is pierced. He turns his head in my direction and I duck.
Later, I go outside. My uncle and the stranger have left. The tree is now a bunch of logs. The air is thick with the scent of pine: tree blood oozes from the freshly split kindling. The wood shavings are soft, the splintered chunks bright. I will not hear this tree creak anymore or watch it lean dangerously towards my bedroom window. I am relieved it is gone.
—
On a bookshelf I found a new copy of The Grimm Fairy Tales. The spine creaked as I opened it, perhaps for the first time anyone ever had. I flipped through the pages and paused to examine a particularly grotesque illustration of a woman whose back was hunched. Her long hair hung tangled and grizzled past her warty elbows. “A witch,” the caption read. A note fell from between the storybook pages and I picked it up. It was written by Grandpa; the book was a gift for my mom’s fortieth birthday. He reminded her that he used to read these stories to her as a child, though he didn’t remember the illustrations being so creepy. The note is signed: “Love, Dad.”
—
Mom takes me to visit Grandpa once when he is dying. We drive to his house in Portland, Oregon. The scenic route is no longer fully scenic: the B&B Complex Fires destroyed many trees between the town of Sisters and Detroit Reservoir only a few years before. The blackened pines are bare and sparse; smoke still seems to rise from them, and ashes shift with the occasional sigh of mountain air. Deep in the Cascades there is a cross on one of these trees that miraculously escaped the flames. We pass through the scorched area and eventually merge onto I-5, northbound.
Portland has many bridges. Mom clenches her teeth when we drive over them. Unlike the straight, short bridges crossing narrow rivers at home, these ones are long and curved, winding over one another. I wonder what she fears from them. She has never been afraid of heights, yet as we navigate our way through the city I see anxiety grip her whenever another great concrete monolith rises before us. I wish she wasn’t afraid and I wish I knew how to help her. Instead, I silently pray she’ll keep her eyes open and that we’ll make it across.
We reach the house. Grandpa lies on a couch, weak with cancer and incapable of moving beyond turning his head. He tells me to keep my distance because he’s undergone radiation therapy. The warning is unnecessary because I wouldn’t have approached him. We do not stay long. He does not have long. Though we have never spoken, there is nothing to say. The silence lengthens. Finally, he breaks it, barking across the room: “Any boyfriends?”
—
I did not see my grandpa again. On my next visit, his ashes were concealed in a white, heart-shaped box that promised to be all-natural. Attached was a consoling poem, a packet of wildflower seeds, and instructions: the decomposable heart was to be buried somewhere over which the seeds were to be scattered. Grandma shook her head. “Your grandpa never let flowers grow in life; he’s not going to start now.” She carried the box with her from room to room and was still holding it when we said goodbye.
—
Returning from my third year of college on a flight from Salt Lake City to Portland, my plane slips through deceptively serene clouds and enters a violent storm. The Irish woman sitting beside me clutches my arm and tells me, don’t panic! We jolt roughly as we pierce the thick, black clouds. Suddenly, Mount Hood jumps out on the left. We sweep close enough to see individual branches on the trees. The mountain’s peak is white and imposing, a deadly invitation beckoning climbers to a final, fatal ascent. Their bodies will be recovered in more seasonable weather. Klickitat legend tells that Mount Hood was once a lover of Mount St. Helens, but as a result of the destruction caused by a battle with a bitter rival, the two were transformed into mountains to be kept forever apart. Mount Hood still raises his head in pride. I look around but cannot see what’s left of Mount St. Helens through the gloom. Then I remember that her head has exploded.
I wait by the baggage claim, wondering if my aunt and grandma will remember that I’m coming and whether or not I’ll recognize them if they come to pick me up. When they don’t appear, I start digging through my backpack in search of my cell phone. I hear someone call my name. I look up. Limping towards me is the witch from Grandpa’s fairy tale book, hunched with crooked shoulders and a spikey halo of grizzled white hair sticking out from her wildly swinging braid: my aunt. She is reminiscent of Gothmog, the deformed orc lieutenant from the film version of Tolkien’s The Return of the King. Close behind her trails a hobbit—my grandmother—with her thick white hair curled and her glasses (they are new) askance. They stop before me and we stand, staring at each other. I’m considering whether it’d be appropriate to hug them when my grandma turns to my aunt, angry. “I wanted to see her come off the plane!” I begin to explain the impossibility of this due to increased airport security since the last time she flew—pre-9/11—but she grabs my arm and tugs me towards the exit. My aunt escorts me on the other side. “We’re not letting you escape,” she cackles.
—
My grandpa never let my aunt get away. I suspect that her physique and social eccentricities are the results of the verbal, physical and possibly sexual abuse she endured since she was a child. Grandma was powerless against Grandpa’s temper and cowered beneath his oppressive thumb since marrying him over fifty years before. It was a miracle my mom had the courage to leave. So when my aunt mutters under her breath, I try not to think of her as a witch casting spells. I laugh at her cynical words because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to do.
—
In grandma’s house there is a mountain of chocolate spilling from the pantry and piled to the ceiling. Hansel and Gretel would have picked this house over the one made of gingerbread. All kinds of candy are heaped haphazardly from the ground up. I spot seasonal treats alongside year-round brands, some with names I’ve never heard of. When my aunt stalks past, the floor shakes: the candies threaten an avalanche but decide against it, settling into a more dispersed pile. “Help yourself,” Grandma says, materializing by my elbow like a phantom. I see many of the bags are already open, as though a single piece of chocolate has been sampled from each. I check dates on the packages and discover that many of these chocolates are expired. “Your grandfather never did let me have sweet things,” Grandma sniffs. She appraises her dragon’s horde, then tugs at a half-buried bag until it comes free. She opens it, selects a piece of chocolate, unwraps it, and pops it into her mouth. She closes her eyes, savoring it. My aunt stumps towards us and nudges me with her elbow.
“That’s why we have so much now,” she grins. “Dad’s gone, heh heh heh.”
—
My aunt is at her secretarial job for the U.S. Forest Service. Grandma is ashamed the yard is such a mess. “I always wanted a garden,” she says. We sit for a while in the dirty lawn chairs before she can’t take it anymore. She musters the strength to stand and takes a rusty shovel left leaning against the tool shed. I watch her walk out to the dying plum tree, and, with effort, root up a dandelion. The grass is carpeted with them. The work of raising a second weed leaves her hot and panting for breath. “It’s too warm out,” she says. “I’m tired.” She abandons the shovel against the tree and goes inside. After a minute, I rise and go to the shovel. It’s heavier than I thought it would be. The wood is rough against my hands. I turn to a bright yellow flower and hope grandpa’s ashes aren’t buried beneath it. I dig up the dandelion. And another. And another. Soon there is a pile of dandelions and patches of dirt surround the tree, cankerous scars left from the weeds’ removal. I don’t stop until all of the dandelions are in piles. My grandma comes back outside, carrying lemonade for both of us. Her eyes are sparkling.
—
My mom arrives to take me home, but first she wants to show me Mount St. Helens. The four of us—Mom, my grandma, my aunt, and I—leave late in the morning. The air is warm and we drive with the windows down. Grandma shouts so we can hear her words, but they float away before reaching our ears. We follow the Columbia River in a north-west direction. The scenery is lush and leafy. We miss our exit, but the next six will all take us where we are going.
Brief cloudbursts wash the trees bright, glassy green, and the world feels new. The mountain approaches gradually; with each bend in the road it swells more into sight. We pass stands of trees, each section perhaps a mile long, in various stages of growth. Signs indicating how recently they were planted flash by. The land is oddly artificial in its manufactured renewal.
We stop at a gift shop. Armed with my grandpa’s bank account, Grandma unloads $700 on a carved black bear nativity set (one of the three kings is missing) and jewelry made of ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The stones are green, several shades grimmer than the pines we passed on the road. Grandma asks if I want one and I say no. I don’t want to bring the disaster home with me. I’ve seen enough evidence of violent explosions to go without a reminder. She insists on buying me something, and I choose the cheapest item I can find. Grandpa might’ve liked that.
We return to the car. Clouds roll in more thickly overhead, threatening further rain and hiding the sun. What remains of the mountain’s peak is obscured by thunderheads. Still we climb higher and higher into the surrounding, deepening hills. A river winds far below the road, etching a path through the jagged landscape. I trace it with my eyes and then I notice the ash. The river is a ribbon in a dark streak of ash, still remaining thirty years since that fateful spring morning. The scars run deep, hidden and less noticeable. Mount St. Helens is lopsided like my aunt; the trees are slowly regrowing, like my grandma with her newfound independence; but the river below ... I think of Mom.
We come to a bridge, long and straight and daunting. Mom’s hands whiten on the wheel as she slows to half the recommended speed. I sense her panic and offer to drive. She shakes her head and we start to cross. My aunt laughs evilly from the back seat at my mom’s terror: she has known worse. I coax my mom gently across the bridge, distracting her from the gorge below, a river still blackened by the fiery wrath of the mountain. The fragments seemingly all fall together. Grandpa’s legacy is one of fear and damage, but it’s not too late. The scars below are healing, and I realize that even if I couldn’t have prevented the fires or the eruptions or the abuse, I can stop their effects. I rest my hand gently on my mom’s shoulder and she nods, acknowledging my support, her eyes fixed on the bridge ahead. I hope to cross many more with her.
S.M.B. recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English. She is enjoying a lazy summer full of reading novels and attempting to write one of her own. "From the Ashes" is her first published work. She hopes her aunt never discovers that she was described as an orc.
ISSUE:
S U M M E R
2012
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