13 June 2024

12 May 2024 began in Whittier NC with my short-term roommate Gina, granddaughter Olivia’s aunt, wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day—a first for me, since I’ve never been a mother; technically a step-grandmother, I found the easy path to grandparenting.  Still, that acknowledgment was very sweet, and sustained by that and some avocado toast the Andrew/Steinke team provided, I set off for the next mountain cabin of my Southern Sojourn, an Airbnb in Mill Spring NC called “My Happy Place.”  I was, however, too sleepy to drive for long, and got only as far as the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center, where I parked, rearranged my hatch-back GTI so I could recline in the seat, and took a half hour nap.

Refreshed by that and the rest of the previous day’s Cuban sandwich I’d brought along, I then took up my next mission: fulfilling my sister Jane’s request to scatter her ashes in the mountains she loved.

Where, exactly, was yet to be determined, so en route to Mill Spring where I was to meet up with Jane’s husband Richard and son Daniel, I was checking out venues.  These folks were new to the North Carolina mountains, and the Lupi family was looking to me to find just the right spot.  But since the early 90’s, I’d not spent any time in Hendersonville where Jane and our mother once lived; Virginia sold her place at 927 Greenville Highway well before the 21st century arrived, and much had changed since then.  In fact, Jane knew that house was no longer maintained as our mother had kept it, and she had been explicit about not leaving her ashes there. So, I was looking for a suitably elevated place with a lovely, peaceful view.  Chimney Rock was a possibility right up until I arrived there and discovered what a tourist trap it and nearby Lake Lure had become. Definitely NOT the place for Jane. Disappointed and disconcerted, I also found the drive from there to Mill Spring rather unnerving, as the last stretch of narrow, winding mountain road sans shoulders was unpaved and creepily deserted.

With help from gps, however, I did finally find our rental, a lovely place, and managed to locate the key in the lockbox.

I had just settled down to admire the view when I got an anxious call from my brother-in-law, Richard.  Lacking the gps so critical to finding this remote place, he was now driving those same narrow, twisting roads without knowing where he was.  Happily, he was ultimately able to pull over at the little Midway Baptist Church, which gave me a location to enter into my own gps; they were only 8.7 miles away, and leading them back to our cabin was easy.  Truly, Jesus saves.

Once we settled in and calmed down on that Mother’s Day Sunday afternoon, we determined that with a steady rain forecast for Tuesday, our best chance for fulfilling Jane’s wishes would be the very next day, Monday.  But where, o where?  A phone conversation with our mother’s former tenant and Jane’s friend Carol was at first frustratingly and then comically broken up by her cell phone’s sporadically cutting out and continually interrupting her many questions about where to meet.  Carol wanted very much to be present when we said goodbye to Jane, but her knees were not up to much of a walk.  We managed a compromise:  the next morning Carol would meet us at Carl Sandburg’s one-time home, Connemara, a National Historic Site close to Carol’s own home, where she could help us scatter some of Jane’s ashes. The cremation advantage: those ashes can be divvied up.

That settled, the guys and I made a provisioning trip to Publix in Flat Rock—the grocery reassuringly laid out like the Safety Harbor Publix the Lupis knew in Clearwater—and had a good wood-fired pizza dinner in Flat Rock before returning “home” to Mill Spring.

Determined to figure out once and for all Jane’s launching pad—more Lupis would be arriving for an improvised ceremony the next day, and needed to know where to meet us—I sat once more at my laptop hoping for inspiration.  It came:  I remembered that Jane had mentioned Laurel Park as a possible site, though at the time we spoke, I knew it only as a housing development.  A little online search revealed what I needed to know and Jane had meant:  there was a lovely little park-with-a-view in Laurel Park. Jump Off Rock was the place.  I got to bed late, but fell asleep quickly, calmed by at last having a plan.

The next misty morning, 13 May, I packed a picnic lunch and we drove north to Flat Rock where we met Carol, who arrived with lots of questions, plastic cups, and a bottle of sauvignon blanc, the better to toast Jane as we said our goodbyes.  Carol honored the memory of sharing a glass of wine with Jane at the end of their work days back home at 927.  Carol’s garrulous energy—there’s a lot of Amanda Wingfield’s gift of gab in Carol—kept sadness at bay with her tales of what Virginia Episcopalians could get away with in the upper gallery of a sanctuary, shoes off and bottle in hand.  So glad we connected.

From there we went on to Laurel Park and Jump Off Rock where Phil and Gloria Lupi awaited us.  A wedding was just finishing up there as the light rain ceased and we could seize the moment and the site to cast our lovely Jane’s ashes to the prevailing wind blowing toward Mt. Pisgah where the Murphys had once vacationed, and over which David and I had scattered our dad George’s ashes as David flew our rented Piper Warrior back to Maine after an Asheville visit.

The place and the day felt right and peaceful; we all thought Jane would approve.  Phil then gave Richard some tips on using the gps on his iPhone and then he and Gloria drove down the mountain to their motel while Richard, Daniel, and I had our picnic lunch.  A sign detailing Laurel Park’s history revealed the park had been donated to the town by a couple from Pinellas County Florida—where both Jane and I were born.  A literal sign from the universe that I’d found the right spot?  I like to think so.

The rain began again as soon as we finished our lunch, so I drove us around to other of Jane’s venues in Hendersonville. First, the house at 927 Greenville Highway where Jane’s studio had been, a property now the worse for wear and lacking the gazebo that our dad and I built down by the stream one summer, and then the Belk’s department store at the now desolate Blue Ridge Mall where Jane had once worked selling fine china and then later cosmetics, and often proving her own best customer.

We met up again with the Lupis for an early dinner at Flat Rock’s Campfire Grill (brook trout for me), and returned to Mill Spring tired but pleased by a day well spent.

The next morning came with more rain, and we decided to forego any unnecessary driving.  We spent a quiet morning together, leaving the cozy cabin only once when the rain let up for a brief walk around the very hilly development.

The only excitement came from a message that the sheriff had been called to the Lupi house in Safety Harbor for a wellness check; Richard’s neighbors, unaware of the Lupis’ upcoming travel, saw no sign of occupancy and panicked.  Once sorting that out and successfully getting Richard’s rental car synced with his iPhone, he navigated us back to Hendersonville for a final and very tasty dinner downtown at Mezzaluna.  Seeing a map of Italy behind Richard and Daniel, I pitched the idea of the Lupis taking a “roots trip” to Sicily, a distinct future possibility.

That night we packed up and got ready to leave in the morning, the guys to drive home to Florida, and me to move on to what was once my old Kentucky home, Danville.  Two graduations and one funeral down, one graduation to go.

Today, one month to the day that we set Jane free to ride the winds over the mountains, we ordered a paver for her there in Laurel Park.  I think she’d like that.