In my great-great grandfather’s mountains

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Dragon dancing along the ridge yesterday evening.

I arrived in Cherokee a week ago hoping to hear some good gossip/oral history about my great-great grandfather Will Thomas or his adopted father, Yonaguska. As happens so often in life, I didn’t get what I was looking for. I got other things entirely, things whose value and meaning I’m only just coming to understand.

 

One thing I didn’t grasp at all before this week was the pull of the mountains. I remember an aunt once remarking, “I hate going to the mountains. I mean, what do you DO once you get there?” And that’s pretty much how I felt. But this week, the doing was taken care of for me. All I had to do was show up in a classroom from 9 – 5, Monday through Friday. The rest of the time was just being here. So every day I’d come back to our rented house in this mountain valley – very much like the valley my great-great grandfather lived in one hundred and fifty years ago. And as in most country towns, there’s not a lot to do here in the evenings (unless you like casinos and gambling, which I don’t), so after supper, we’d sit on the porch and watch the day end. Probably much as Will Thomas once did. At first I didn’t even notice that I was noticing the slow changes of the sky beyond the mountain ridge. But a couple of days in, I began to look forward to seeing how the sky changed slowly from pale blue to turquoise to indigo; how the clouds, so much closer here, shifted shape and meaning so quickly – now a curling dragon, now bright streaks of calligraphy in a language as old as the world. And then, unexpectedly, I realized I’d fallen in love.

 

When my great-great grandfather was in the lunatic asylum in Morganton – which is in the foothills of the mountains, so hardly a desolate plain – he’d write yearning letters home saying how much better he was doing and how he was sure he’d be able to go home to the mountains soon. He never did. He died in Morganton far from these nestled mountain valleys and the ever-changing drama of the mountains beyond. I understand now what a loss and sadness that was for him – like being kept away from someone you’ve loved your whole life. I wish I could go back in time and, before the end, magically transport him home so he could see the mountains before him, feel their embrace all around him, as he died.

It’s not fun trashy gossip, but it’s something very deep and real I’ve learned about my great-great grandfather, and, because of it, I know him better now than I did a week ago.

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Sunset over the ridge this evening.

2 thoughts on “In my great-great grandfather’s mountains”

  1. Here in Charlottetown PEI, I sit on my balcony at night and look South over the Hillsborough River towards the Strait of Northumberland, indeed the sky and the clouds have an ever changing pattern and colour. It is fascinating to watch.

    1. Sky and water is as magical a combination as sky and mountains. Such a peaceful way to end each day. I’m going to miss it when I get back to Pittsburgh.

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