Special Days in Hampam

While our days were spent pretty much the same, we did have a couple of variations. First, there was a memorial celebration for Maya's father, who died months ago.

Although Alan was my uncle, he wasn't someone that I knew in that role. I met him when I was seven and came to Hyampom for the first time, but I have no memory of that meeting or that trip. I met him again when Maya was in high school. That was after he and my aunt were divorced, and Maya lived with Alan and her grandfather in Arizona. We traveled out west to visit and spent maybe an hour meeting everyone when picking up Maya for a trip to Mexico. I saw him again at Maya's wedding, but I have little memory of that time either. I think I got to know him more via Facebook these last few years more than anything.

Yet, on the day of the memorial, I awoke with a terrible sadness. Memorials always bring out the losses of others and having lost my parents, I feel for those who have just had the same. Jay and I spent some moments talking about that. He hasn't lost his parents, and I do believe that hinders you in some ways because it's a crazy shock to the system when it does happen. You think you get it, that you understand, but I don't think you can. It's one of those experiencing kind of things. But Jay and I talked about Alan and our memories.

Alan loved Hyampom and the land he lived on. It was decided that the service would be down by a tree that has survived the fires and was a tree and area where he spent time. Tons of people came for the memorial. There were neighbors, old and new. There were friends. Family. We all gathered by the tree, and then we were asked to hang pictures and mementos of Alan on the tree.

There was laughter. There was crying. There were lots of stories told when a picture set off a reminder. Everyone participated in hanging something until the tree was full of Alan and memories. Then people got up and spoke. Some told stories. Some talked about the first time they'd met Alan. Maya and her sister spoke about him as a father. Jay and Marilyn got up and spoke. Darcy told me later that after hearing everyone, she really was sorry she never got a chance to meet him. I told her I had felt the same. Crazy to think that I never really had that.

Alan's ashes were sprinkled around the tree. Then everyone headed back up the hill to the house for food and drink and reminiscing. More stories were told. I got a chance to sit with Maya's half-sister to read some letters she had and to hear the stories behind them. It was a lovely memorial.

Our next veer from the routine was a trip into town. The center of town has a grocery where we loaded up on essential things like chips and the post office, where I went in with Auntie Marilyn to get her mail.

From there, we walked two feet to the farmer's market. That was a line of cars where sellers sold their wares from the back on tables they'd set up in the shade. It's the time of the week for the locals to get out and interact, hearing the gossip and such. We arrived, pouring out of the Yukon XL like a busload of tourists at a pitstop with pockets full of cash. We bought coffee cakes and cookies. We bought lemonade and admired the vegetables. In the ten minutes it took us to make our transaction, we'd cleaned out some of the six vendors of her supplies, and she was none too happy. We hoped she didn't plan for that the following market since we wouldn't be there.

We left the farmer's market and Marilyn showed us the bar in town. The Brews and Screws.

The Brews is the bar inside the building, which we did not enter but pictured in our heads. Then we drove around the side to the back to see the Screws, a hardware trailer full of things like screws, hammers, nails, etc. Customers get what they need and leave the money in a hat or bucket by the door. 

We drove on to see the school where Marilyn used to teach and to see where Korin had once lived. We got out at Marilyn's friend's house and viewed her marijuana and fruit groves, and then she gave us a tour of the house that she and her significant other are renovating. Someone sitting on the porch when we arrived said she didn't really understand how large our group was until we all walked up the drive and lined up one by one to get into the house.

Jay: "Are you here for the 1:10 tour?"

It became our theme from there on out.

Later, on another day, we had two tours. The ten o'clock tour through the neighbor's marijuana plantation and dirt bike race track and the 10:10 tour up the hill from Marilyn's house to see her original cabin and her garden. Only Jay took the first one. The rest of us went with Auntie Marilyn.

The original cabin was a one-room cabin with a loft. It's where I stayed when I was seven. I remembered the downstairs, but the loft was not anything like I remembered. I had a vision of a large circle in the middle of the ceiling. It was not that at all. Hmm...

Marilyn has a renter/caretaker in the cabin. We had met him on several of the nights when he joined us for dinner or conversation. He had a sweet dog, and both were there when we arrived and allowed us to troop through the cabin. 

Next to the cabin, was a shed that Marilyn has since converted into a guest house. This was where she was sleeping while we were all in her home. 

We jokingly took the kids into the garden and explained that this is where food came from. My girls rolled their eyes at that, but I told the story of how my Aunt Lorene had asked Madison where she thought food came from and how horrified she was when Maddy responded with, "the grocery." So, we put the kids to work harvesting the veggies. Nothing like a little child labor.

We sat for a while in the shade, and Anya entertained us with a hula hoop. We talked and made Maya tell stories of her childhood growing up in the cabin. Then we made our way back down the hill to resume our normal daily activities.

All of the activities were a nice change from our daily life, although we were all quite happy to get back into the flow and head to the river afterward.