Crossing Over

Sometimes a genealogy researcher finds that the boundaries become blurred between the land of the living and the resting place of the dead.

Oh, we have no trouble traipsing through innumerable cemeteries, gawking at the epitaphs of strangers long gone. Some even celebrate this oddity, adopting the moniker, “Graveyard Rabbits.”

I can hardly blame them. As long as I can remember, the fascination of the micro-histories that may be found by careful attention to headstones draws me, too.

But that fascination eludes me today.

In a move that we often wish for ourselves but would discover to be devastating for others, my sister-in-law took the opportunity, just before dawn the other day, to step over that demarcation line and join the other side. She passed quietly in the night. No one knew—well, no one, that is, until it was quite over and most irreversible.

Not that they didn’t try. A valiant effort by family and first responders ensued upon discovery. That blurry line, though, hardened its resolve to keep the one it had just captured.

And it was all over. The line, once blurred, returned firmly into place. A new boundary has been drawn.

That news has left, first, shock. As time passes, though, my memory eases the jolt in microscopic ways, as scenes from our lives together play out in the movie screen of my mind.

I see my sister-in-law in all sorts of escapades from youth and from the many times we’ve shared together. I recall what seemed to be the invincible twenty-something who—courtesy of several serious car wrecks from which she merely walked away—was the source of periodic heart-attack-worthy spates of anxiety for my mother-in-law. I see also the doting sister-in-law whose good intentions while visiting me in the hospital, post-surgery, lapsed into concern that she, herself, might become the one who needed nursing attention. Thinking of the upcoming holiday, I recall the yearly dance of coordinating schedules so that we could get together sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve in a way that would not conflict with our travel obligations or her husband’s gigs with his band.

I remember how she adored her “big brother,” the man I married, who unmercifully never let her forget that, when a pre-schooler, she would introduce herself complete with middle name, though she couldn’t quite pronounce it. Rather than ending with a perfectly-enunciated  “Louise,” it always came out as “Judy ’weez.”

It’s odd to think that the very ailment that claimed her brother’s life so early—Marfan syndrome—was partially what shriveled the size of her extended family. She lost her grandfather, an uncle, and father within a few years’ time. Her mother, now gone, was an only child of parents who had moved from Wisconsin to California—cut off from extended family left behind. A grand-aunt and grand-uncle were all that she and her brother had, growing up—until age claimed that surrogate grandparents’ generation. And then, her brother left, too.

With this passing, there is no one remaining in that family. That thought is not lost on a genealogist: a family gone. A stump of a branch on a hollowed-out family tree. Sometimes, life doesn’t go on.

Perhaps it’s the genealogy in me that wants me to keep on pursuing her family history. Though there is no one to pass this heritage down to, there is quite a story. My sister-in-law’s paternal  grandfather—a local, male version of Helen Keller, was blind and deaf owing to a childhood accident, yet developed skills in many areas, including publishing a book of poetry, and publicly speaking about his experiences. Her great-grandparents provided stories of spunk and vivacity, and heritages as diverse as Frenchmen from Maine traveling around the horn to California during Gold Rush days, to Irish-Americans crossing the continent to the same destination. Perhaps it is that seemingly-indestructible resilience that, passed down to her generation, powered my sister-in-law’s younger days. Perhaps seeing all that she survived throughout her life painted her with that invincible aura.

But it was not meant to be so. We all have to go at some point, we tell ourselves. And after we go, those who are left behind take up the task of looking back to see what is worth keeping—worth remembering. Father, mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles morph from family members to family memories.

And yes, even sisters-in-law.

Well, that is not entirely correct to call her my sister-in-law. She might be more correctly labeled as what my family facetiously dubs “outlaws.” Even then, that is not quite right. Because I lost my first husband at a relatively young age, though I remarried, I’ve always maintained a relationship with my original in-laws. Adding the in-laws from my current marriage, it became quite awkward to introduce this woman as my sister-in-law, yet that is what she was. It always took an inordinately long explanation to complete those introductions. It was easier to just call her Judy, Greg’s sister. Most everyone in my circle of acquaintances would then understand.

It helps to know people who know that.