Celebration of Life

LaReta’s (Lore) celebration of life was July 24, 2016. A multitude of family and friends were there, enjoying brilliant sunshine and a refreshing breeze on the deck that overlooks a valley to the east. It’s so relaxing. This is the place where Lore spent many mornings, hands clasped around a hot cup of coffee listening to the sound of birds. She loved her bird houses that hung from a tree which grows majestically in the center of her deck. When the weather didn’t allow, Lore would sit in her living room recliner and watch her feathered friends from there. 

Lore’s deck has seen many celebrations over the years, including a wedding (mine) and multiple birthday parties. It was a poignant moment when Nicolette, Lore’s daughter, noted this would be the last time for a family gathering on the deck. The house will soon be sold.

Along with other memories of Lore, spoken by loved ones, I was asked to read an excerpt from The Road to LaReta. I had practiced many times, but knew it would be difficult to get through without crying. I was right.
 

This is the scene from which I read: Webb saw very little of his daughter after her first year of life. She’s now three and a half years old. It’s two days after Dorothy’s funeral and Webb has to go back to Montana. He’s talking to LaReta on the back porch of a relative’s home.

Webb and LaReta sat on the back porch step. “Are you my Daddy Webb?” LaReta asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you wiv in ‘Ontana?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Did I wiv there too?”

“You did. You and your mommy were there, not very long ago. You visited me last Summer. Do you remember that?”

LaReta looked long and hard at Webb. “Maybe,” she grinned, tilted her head to look at him and grabbed her knees to her chin.

“Reta, Blanche and I have to go back to Montana today cuz I have to go to work. But I’m planning for you to come live with me again real soon.”

“Can mommy come too?”

This was a conversation Webb wanted Laura to have with LaReta, not him. He wasn’t prepared, but there was the question… He looked across the back yard, paused and then turned to LaReta.

“Your mommy won’t be able to come with you, Reta. She got real sick. So sick that she … couldn’t come home from the hospital.”

LaReta looked at him wide-eyed. “She’s in the ho’pital? I want to go see her.”

“No, she’s not there anymore.”

“Where is she? I want to find her.”

Webb rubbed his forehead, stretched his legs out, pulled his pants at the knees to shake them toward his shoes, then took a deep breath, cleared his throat and asked, “When you were at Mrs. Bailey’s, did they have any animals, Reta?”

“Yup. Mommy rode Sweetheart to school every day. And they had a cow and pigs and some chickens. Some of the chickens got their heads chopped off for supper. Oh, and they had a kitty and a dog, too.” LaReta was proud of being able to name all the animals at the Bailey’s house. “I used to scare the kitty sometimes.” LaReta wrinkled her nose and tilted her head at Webb again. “Mrs Bailey didn’t like it when I did that, but it was funny.” LaReta giggled and then got serious again.

“But where’s mommy?” She was determined to get answers.

LaReta’s story about chickens getting their heads cut off for supper dissuaded Webb from continuing his explanation about death using farm animals as an example. Damn, I could do more harm than good with this talk. And it’s one I never intended to have!

He wasn’t sure if another tact would work or not, but decided to give it a try. From everything he’d been taught in Almont in the basement of the Lutheran Church, he believed it was true. At least for LaReta’s sake and his own, he wanted it to be true.

“Reta. Your mommy got so sick she went to Heaven to be with Jesus. She’s there now and someday, we’ll all be able to be with her. She can’t come live with us in Montana because she’s in that beautiful place called ‘Heaven’ where no one is sick and everyone is happy. She misses you, but knows you’ll be there with her one day too.”

LaReta looked at him with disbelief and then sadness. “Why didn’t I get to go with her to Heaben?” She started to cry.

Dear Lord, help me out here will you? Webb wrapped his arms around his daughter. “Sometimes, Reta, that’s just the way it is.”

Webb sat back and held LaReta at arm’s length. “Hey, want to drive the car again? I think we have time.”

Sniffling, she bobbed her head up and down. Webb picked her up and galloped to the Chevy. That brought back giggles and smiles.

The car eased down the driveway and then picked up a little speed. “Wookit me! Wookit me!” LaReta bounced up and down in Webb’s lap, her small hands stretched to the top of the big steering wheel. With one hand around LaReta’s waist, Webb’s other hand managed the steering wheel from the bottom as the old Chevy snaked it’s way slowly down the road. His arms and heart were full.

 

The Road to LaReta

I swam from a dream world to the surface through murky half-light. A new title came to me, a splash of thought. The Road to LaReta. The imagined waters calmed and it was clear to me, this may be the final title for the novel about Webb Bateman. 

Lying in the warmth of fluffy covers with an even fluffier cat backed into the crook of my waist, I reflected on the sound and meaning of The Road to LaReta. It rolled off my tongue; sounded right. I felt a bonding with the words.

Including LaReta’s name in the title was inspired by her daughter, Nicolette, as we stood by her dying mother’s bedside. She advised me to include something about a woman in the title. “We need more books about women,” she said. She didn’t specifically suggest her mother’s name, but it made me step back and think more about the important women in the story and the one person who motivated Webb’s journey and the opportunity to redeem himself. It was LaReta, his three-year-old daughter.

The book, a historical fiction novel based on a true story, had two other titles during the writing: Cat Skinner and Nicolette’s first inspired title, LaReta’s Cat Skinner. But the third title seemed best, The Road to LaReta.

The father LaReta and I share, Webb Bateman, was a Cat Skinner – a heavy equipment operator, but the story is not just about the earth he moved. It’s also about a man honed behind a cue stick, at the end of a fist, behind a plow, in a circus giraffe suit, and in the belly of a coal mine.  It’s the story of a man who married because he thought it was the right thing to do, but a man more interested in his construction jobs, drinking and playing cards than he was in raising a family. His wife’s sudden death provided a chance at redemption. Could he do what was right and make up for the pain he caused? Could he raise LaReta?

The journey of 900 miles to Dorothy’s funeral takes just a few days, but gives Webb time to reflect on his twenty-seven years of life; too much time and not enough to grapple with who he is and the man he wants to be.

The novel is in revision, after being read by four wonderful women who offered right-on suggestions. The one woman I wanted to read the story, is gone. My half-sister LaReta passed away at age eighty on June 14, 2016, but she knew her name would be in the title and I’m hopeful her sweet spirit will live on in The Road to LaReta.