A Bridge Unbroken

Dear Boo and Bubble,

It’s been over a month since I last wrote you.  And what a month!!!  I must admit that I’ve been so distracted, distraught, discouraged……..and any other “dis” you can think of………by the events swirling around us that I have neglected The Bridge Project.  But, today, I had an experience that brought me back to the whole reason I started this blog in the first place and I couldn’t wait to get home to share it with you.

For the last four years, Captain and I have been coming to Mt. Dora to spend the winter months.  It’s a delightful smallish city in Lake County located in the middle of Florida.  Although much of what we’ve enjoyed since being here might be chalked up to serendipity, our selecting Mt. Dora was not accidental. Lake County and its various municipalities of Tavares, Leesburg, Eustis, Yalaha and Mt. Dora are ground zero for the history surrounding Captain’s paternal family – the Cottrells.

Your quadruple-great grandfather, Joseph Benson Cottrell, is buried in Yalaha.  Your double-great grandparents, Emmett Murchison Tally and Lucille Cottrell Tally, lived in Tavares and were pillars of that community. (I have written to you before about Lucille in a blog entitled A Steel Magnolia in the Family on November 24, 2012.)  Emmett served as the county judge from 1907 until his death in 1937. Your great grandfather, Cottrell, was born in Tavares.  Growing up, Captain spent many happy days traveling there from Jacksonville to visit his grandmother.  She was the powerful matriarch in her family of three sons and a far flung flock of grandchildren.

Even though our time in Mt. Dora offered a plethora of new friendships and activities, we were never far away from exploration about the family.  Any visitors who came to stay with us always received the grand tour including a drive-by of Grandma Lucille’s house on the corner of Rockingham and Alfred Streets in Tavares; a stroll down Tally Alley; and a trek to Yalaha to reverently pause at J.B.’s grave.

There is one stop, though, that we have made personally every year and that is to visit Lucille’s grave.  For all of the prominence in her home town, state and nation, to Captain she was something so much more important – his grandmother.  In describing her to me, he always uses this phrase – “When you were with her, she always made you feel like you were the most important person in the world.” That’s why it disturbed him so, the first time we went by, to see her headstone slumping to the left almost half buried in the dirt.  

The first three years, he went through official channels to see about getting the headstone leveled, calling the Tavares city office in charge of the perpetual care for the cemetery.  Every time, Captain would be given the same number for a company that deals with burial markers …….and every time he would call, leave a message, and never get a response.  But, today, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Perhaps the impetus came from the fact that we don’t expect to return next year.

Captain went out into the garage of our rental property and found a trowel, a cement block and a piece of plastic piping.  Missing the most important tool – a shovel – he called his third cousin Charlie Kennedy (whom we tracked down on our first visit to Mt. Dora and have since come to know as a friend) to borrow his.  I volunteered to go along and assist.  We stopped at Lowe’s to get some builder's sand on our way over to Tavares.

At the cemetery, I watched as Captain gathered all the tools.  He started by trying to dig around the headstone with the shovel, but quickly realized that wouldn’t initially work.  He had to take the trowel and first create a trough around the part that had sunk into the dirt.  Carefully, lovingly, he dug around half of the headstone until it loosened enough to pull up.  He then slid the pipe underneath and jacked up the stone, at which point he asked me to lever the stone with the shovel so that he could pour the sand in the space below.  I took the shovel and held it while Captain opened the bag of sand.

Then, after pouring in only a couple of trowel-ful dollops of sand, he did such an unexpected thing.  He took two shiny pennies out of his pocket (which he had obviously placed there intentionally) and dropped them into the sand.

“These are for good luck,” he said.  “One for you and one for me.”

He finished pouring the entire 50-lb. bag of sand into the hole below the headstone until it filled.  Afterwards, he stepped on the stone with his full weight to make sure it now rested on solid ground. We cleaned up as best we could and put the tools back in the car.  Before leaving, we stepped back to the grave one more time.

“I love you,” Captain whispered, not able to speak.

There are many things I love about Captain, but right at the top is his loyalty to and appreciation for family.  Lucille died 46 years ago in 1971.  I never had the opportunity to know her because Captain and I didn’t meet until 1973.  But his love and respect for her is as vibrant today as when she walked the earth.  It is truly a generational bridge that will never be broken for him.

And I hope and believe that we will have such a bridge……and in the years far ahead, when my headstone is listing to one side or the other because of time’s effect, you will do the same for me.