Back to Boca and the angels of Riverside

Tomorrow we are going once again to Asheville, North Carolina.

TG, Erica, and me.

Audrey and -- we hope -- Stephanie will join us there for lunch. We'll probably go back to Boca, since it was so good when we visited last year.

Sunday is Father's Day. It's also TG's and my thirty-fourth wedding anniversary.

With so many options, it's a cinch we'll find something to celebrate.

I have another reason for returning to Asheville, however, besides the beauty of the place, and the great variety of restaurants, shops, and historic sites, all of which tend to beckon.

It is Riverside Cemetery, which, like most vintage cemeteries, interests me a great deal.

Riverside is special in part because the American author, Thomas Wolfe -- who wrote his masterpiece Look Homeward, Angel and a few other books -- along with most of his family members, is interred there.

Like my own father, who was born in October of 1930 and died in September of 1968, Thomas Wolfe -- born in October of 1900 -- died a few weeks before his thirty-eighth birthday, in September of 1938.

It was Thomas Wolfe's father, W.O. Wolfe, who imported from Italy an impressive inventory of seventeen marble angels.

Mr. Wolfe was a gravestone cutter with a small shop right in the middle of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Asheville.

In the final pages of Look Homeward, Angel the angels play a significant part.

Today, several of those angels adorn graves at Riverside Cemetery. A number of others are scattered in cemeteries throughout Western North Carolina.

I have photographed all of them except one: the angel that is perched atop the McElveen family mausoleum at Riverside. I have not had so much as a glimpse of her.

And the reason I have never even seen her, much less taken her picture, despite the fact that I have visited Riverside several times?

She is always thickly covered with exceptionally diligent climbing ivy. As is most of the small mausie she decorates.

The last time I was there -- six months ago -- I sort of whined to the caretakers that every time I showed up, the angel didn't.

"Why don't you clean her off already," I might have said.

One affable chap told me that next time I planned to visit Riverside, I should call ahead and make sure they had opportunity to take their clippers out there and do a big reveal of a small angel.

"Just give us a few weeks' notice," he said.

So, earlier this week I called. I spoke with a courteous fellow named Josh. I told him the reason for my call.

"Saturday," I said. "I'll be there on Saturday and I sure would like to see the McElveen angel."

He was so nice. "No problem, ma'am," he said. "I'll take care of it."

And I know that he will.

So much about my father is hidden to me. I never knew him. I can't seem to get much information out of anyone who did, either.

There is no one to call, to clean off the years and bring any of it back.

I am sorry to be maudlin but those of you with missing parents will understand: certain holidays can be difficult.

But it will bring me joy to see my daughters enjoying time with -- and honoring -- their father tomorrow.

I hope if you still have your dad, you are able to lavish him with love and attention.

And if you don't or for some reason you can't, I truly believe there will be angels standing near. Even if we cannot see them.

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There is one voyage, the first, the last, the only one.

Yet, as he stood for the last time by the angels of his father's porch, it seemed as if the Square already were far and lost; or, I should say, he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he has left, yet does not say "The town is near," but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.

~From Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe~

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Happy Friday ~ Happy Weekend ~ Happy Father's Day

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Comments

[Mari]

I know you will have a wonderful day with your family and I look forward to seeing pictures of that angel. I'm blessed to have my Dad with me yet and will be seeing him tomorrow. I do know how I miss my Mom especially on certain days, but at least I had her till she was 69. I'm sorry that you had so few years with your Dad.

[irene]

I look forward to your photos of that patiently revealed angel. Happy Anniversary in advance, have a blast with T.G and your daughters.

[Skunkfeathers]

Enjoy the visit and I trust you'll get the angel this time ;-)

[Donna M.]

Best wishes for a wonderful Father's Day and anniversary celebration. I hope you also get a glimpse of the angel that has remained hidden. And I hope that someday you will learn more about your father.

My father is long gone from this world now. Though he never left us physically during my youth, he left us mentally many times, tormented with his own demons. I never got to know him very well because of the thick shell that he always carefully had in place.

[Sue the Hobbit]

I'm missing my dad (and longing for the day I see him again) and appreciating my husband this weekend.

[Tony Funderburk]

Great story. I remember playing music in Asheville back in the early 90's. There was a great health food store there...sort of like a whole foods, but with more down home personality. And of course I remember how many references to "mile high" there were in the part of North Carolina. That rings a bell with me being here in the Mile High city of Denver.
But I digress...I really wanted to wish you a happy and blessed anniversary and a happy father's day to your husband...and all dads. Mine's been gone for 27 years but never forgotten.

Have a great weekend!