Ashes of Love

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Southan Comiiiiimcation loumalVoL 71. No. 2. lune 2006. pp. 195-J03 | ^ T i y l o r i . F r a n c i s C r < x , p

Ashes of LoveThomas Frentz

Born of love, bearer of the light of kindnessln.scription on Janice's gravestoneShortly after 8:00 a.m., November 20, 2003 in Miami Beach, Janice delivered her

last convention paper to thi Ethnography Division panel participants and about sixearly risers. That paper concludes this issue, and Art Bochner cites it in his tribute toJanice. Her paper was entitled, "It Sh ould Have Been A W edd ing: M etap ho rs of Lifeand Dealh at a Funeral." She spoke compassionately of Dianne Hocker, who died ofcancer only a month after marrying Janices brother, Ed. No one could possibly haveknown at the time how prophetic her remarks were to become, for as she was speak-ing, Janice had one day les.s than three months to live herself. Here are a few linesfrom her last paragraph:

Ed and Gary |brother-in-law Gary Hawk] climb Ml. Harvard, one of the majestic14,000-11 utters ol Co lorado's t^ollegiate Peaks. It is an a rdu ous ascent, but it isDianne's most sacred place. In addition to the sleeping bags and five days' supplyof food, the tvko men carry two small packages that are not "issc-niials." Ed tells meabout it later. With wonder, he describes the clarity of the air at that height and themagnificent white, bearded mountain goats that showed up mysteriously to followthem silently to the highest pointlul and (^ir\ raise their small wooden boxes, opening the lids while their audi-ence of horned ones looks on curiously. Tlies release Dianne's ashes like feathers inthe wind, not knowing where they will fall. (2003, p. 11)I had intended here to segue into another story of ashes-this one about me cartying

Janice's ashes, not up Mt. Harvard, but to Tincup, Colorado. Little did 1 realize, how-ever, how complicated this story was about to become. The one I'm about to tell is still

Th om as Fren tz, Univcr sii) of Arkansas, I'aycttcville. I prese nted an abbreviated vers ion of thi.s tribute at theN(; . \ con ven tion in Chica go, 20 04.1 loved , l ived and wTOte with lan ice for almost 24 years. 1 would like to thankArt Boch ner for his careful readin g of earlier version s of this stor>-, alth oug h I greatly regret ha ving to writo ttCorrespondence concern ing th is art ic le should be sent to the author at Department of Communicat ion , 417


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196 The Southern Comm unication Journala tale of ashes, it still involves a trip to Tincup, and it still involves love, but,unbeknownst to me at the time, it would evolve into much more than I thought itwould be.

My original plan was to leave Fayetteville on July 1, drive to "S ha lom ," the Hoc kercabin, inter Janice's ashes in the Tincup cemetery and head back home. But then,som etim e in M arch, I got this call from Janice's broth er, Ed. After sharin g a fewpleasantries, he offered this apparent non sequitur.

"You k now , I did n't scatter all of Dia nne 's ashes on M t. H arv ard ."" O h ? "" N o , I kept some, although at the t ime I didn't know why. But now I do. Diannespent her life looking for a family that would love and accept her, and she finally

found it with us.""I'm sure that's right," I say, still not knowing where this is leading."I'd really like to bury the rest of her ashes in Tincup, next to Janice's." A long

pause. "But I really don'l want to do anything that might distract frotn what youare planning for Janice."

"Ed, you would be adding to, not taking away. We could just have two services.""I sup pose , but I still don 't feel totally comfo rtable with the idea. Maybe I could

do i t some oth er t im e to keep the two services more separate, m ore individualized.""F.d," 1 say vdth som e con viction, "th is is a ritual of com ple tion , n ot ofcompet i t ion . "

1 hat seemed to help .After ano the r long pau se, he says, "OKI guess you 're right. I 've already got th e

inscription for her grave stone. It goes, 'All who wander are not lost. '""That's just beautiful. Where's it from?""J. R. R. Tolkien. It 's something a wizard once said about his own travels. It just

seemed appropriate. And I've located someone here in Colorado Springs to carve thestones. Do you know what you want to say on Janice's?"

"N ot yet. I want to talk with Joyce and (lary abo ut th at. Th ey're better th an I am atcapturing Janice in a few short phrases. But I'll get back with you soon."And with that, one set of ashes became two.

When Janice's parents, Lamar and Jean Hocker, came to Fayetteville for Janice'sfinal weeks, we all knew that something was wrong with Jean. But this was Janice'stime, and so we rationalized away her discomfort as some .stress-related ailment.We were wrong, very wrong.

After they returned to Colorado, Jean's abdominal pains intensified to the pointwhere, as Lamar would tell me later, "Some nights she would sob all night doubled


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Ashes ol Love 197endure this, she checked into the hospital in early June for some tests. Most wereinconclusi\ e; one was not. Once again, Ed called as the bearer of bad news.

"It doesn't look very good.""So what have we got this time?" I ask, but already know."There's a fairly large tumor in her pancreas. They've put a shunt between her pan-

creas and he r liver, and th at relieved her jaundice, but tha t's a very tem pora ry fk .""Pancreatic cancer is bad, right? ""Right. It 's painful, lethal, untreatable, and quick," he adds. "The quick part is tlie

only 'good news' here."I get off the phone stunned and outraged. What ihc fiick is going on here?! Utuiet

what conditions does a family lose so many of its members all at once? (^ar wrecks,plane crashes, murder/suicides, terrorist attacks, even plagues in days of yore, allcome to mind. But never anything like this. Never from an illness with an almostconscious intetit to take out an entire family in less than a year. Cancer is sweepingthrough the Hockers like a wild fire through a parched forest.

Then 1 calm down. Several days later, I fly to Colorado Springs and stay for a week,then Joyce takes over th e next week, and after Joyce, Jean 's bro the r, Fred, flies in fromSeattle for still a third week. This "tag team" arrangement frees Ed up a bit anddoesn't drain anyone totally. Jean does the best that she can, but she's badly over-matched and we all know it. She and Lamar briefly consider chemotherapy but then,wisely, decide against it.

In late June, Jean asks to go to their cabin. We all know why. Secretly, I think thismight be the dumbest idea in history. Their cabin is. lest we forget, at 10,500 feet anda tough 50-mile drive to the nearest morphine refill center and any Hospice help. ButJoyce, who is now back for her second visit, and Ed know for better than I, and,somehow, they pack and transport Jean and Lamar the tiring four hour drive upand over Cottonwood Pass and down into Taylor Park and, finally, over to Shalom.|o\ce tells me later that when Jean got settled on their couch, she looked out over thevalley and .said, "I'm home now."

At 4:04 p.m. on the 4th of July the phone rings."HeUo.""Hi Tom, it's Joyce.""Hi Joyce, it's To m ," 1 answ er. W e always play this little caller ID gam e.

"Mamma died," her voice cracks ever so slightly, "at 3:00 this afternoon.""Oh JoyceI'm so sorry. No, check that. I'm relieved that Jean's suffering is over,

but I am so sorry that you, Ed, and Lamar had to labot through another cancerdeath ."

"We're all right," she as.sures me, and 1 hear a strength in her voice that I've notheard before. I guess losing your sister and th en yo ur mo ther within four and a halfmonths will do that to you. But it goes deeper than that.

"You know," she continues, "how Mamma and I always had trouble sharing ourfeelings about each other? Well, in these last few weeks all of that melted away, andsome very important healing took place. The day before she died, 1 was singing the


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19 The Southern Communication Journalsure beautiful!' and I said, 'You are too. ' That's part of why I'm all right. We saidwhat we needed to say, and not everyone gets the chance to do that.""So what now?"

"So now I think you shou ld drive out here may be in a couple of days and we'lljust have three services instead of two. We've known how this was going to end, andwe're all ready."

"I'll leave the day after tomorrow. As you know, I've been ready for some time now."I'd pla nn ed to head west on July 1 to bury Janice's ashes. I left o n July 7 to bu ry

three sets of ashesJanice's, Dianne's, and now Jean's. But before heading out, I needto speak a m om ent abo ut "Ms. Red."

Janice was a "PK " a preacher 's kid. One of the m any consequen ces of being a PKis that you spend your life riding around in dark, dull cars. "Medium beige" wasabout as racy as it got in the Hocker family. "After all," Lamar would drone sancti-moniously, "I can't bury someone in a fire engine." But there was one t ime, and Ibelieve Joyce will verify this, that the family actually voted on the color of the newChevrolet station wagon they were getting. Ed, Joyce, and Janice swore they votedfor bright red, and that would have carried the day, 3-2, but somehow, the "vote"was for a butt-ugly dark turquoise.

And s o, from tim e to tim e, only half set ioiisly, Janice would lobby for a bright redcar. Not a sports car, as we had both exhausted our quotas of midlife crises, butrather a bright red 4-door sedan. So I looked for one, semi-seriously. I found two.BMW made an "electric red" sedan that was to die for, but it was around forty grandand projected an image that this former SDSer from Wisconsin simply could not livewith. Audi had a nice cherry-red one, but that too was around thirty-five grand, andthe nearest Audi dealer was in Little Rock. And so we kept talking but not buying.

Then on e day, less than a mo nth after Janice had died, I was paging throug h ConsumerReports and came across a capsule review of a new car by Acura, som ethin g called a TSX. Itwas a sedan, built on the Honda Accord frame that is sold in Europe (smaller than theAmerican version), and, most important of all, from what I could see from the picture,it came in red. So off to my Acura dealer I headed in search of this TSX thin g. N aturally,they had one. Naturally, they had it in red. And quite unnaturally, given my previousexperience looking for bright red sedans, it was the best red I'd seen in years.

"So , what do you call this red?" I asked the salesperson, who really cared for medeeply as a person, not just as a customer.

"Milano red.""Milano, huh? As in Milan? Isn't that where Ferrari 's are made?""Correct . ""So, this is a Ferrari red rip-off, right?"

"Right .""All right. 1 want one."


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Ashes of Love 199And so I got one. Of course, Janice never got to see this car, or to ride in it, but I dotell her about it all the time. That's not quite the same as her being here, but it 's thebest I can do . And I just know she'd giggle every time she'd drive it past a church. Oh,it now sports a personalized license plate that reads "JANICE."

I'm up early the morning of July 7th. Even though I'm all packed (and have beenfor se\ eral weeks), there are still a zillion last m inu te thing s to d o. And so 1 do them.Now there's only one left.

M ollie's curled up in a towel on the ba thr oo m rug. As 1 bend o ver her, sheraises her small head and gives me a soft meow. ~ Im going now, li t t le one," Itell her. "TU be gone awhile, but Stace and Jason will be here and they'll takei;ood care of you. And rem em ber, 1 always com e back. Listen to tha t now : ialwdvs ioinc hack. I love you very much, small creature." I kiss her leather-likenose and leave.

"I'll always come back," I think. The way this goddamned year's been going, howdo I know I'll be coming back? I may get taken out by a Tyson chicken truck fivemiles out of tovm, my jugular pierced by some wayward beak. And how do 1 knowMollie will be alive and well even if I do return? As my cat-owning friends tell me, lifeis pretty risky for an indoor/outdoor cat.

I point "Ms. Red" up the hill and say, "Well, my love, this is the beginning of theend of ou r vac atio n." I always start o ur dr iving trips off that w ay, and Janice alwaysroars in mock rage. No roar toda\.

I know this drive will be emotionally difficult, even in "Ms. Red," and so, to easemy loneliness, I keep up a constant patter with Janice.

"Look, my love," I say excitedly as I come down off (Cottonwood Pass, "a coyote!"1 vervthitig looks greener than usual. I'll bet they've had some rain lately. What

do you think?"""See the fire weed?""I wonder if the Indian Paint Brushes will be thick this year. They might be, you

know, we're here earlier than usual.""T he re's Taylor Park R eservoir. Ho w does it feel to be ho m e again? "

This helpsbut not all that much.1 airive at Shalom ai 1:15 p .m ., ab out 1 hours sooner than 1 expected. Everything

looks the same, but, of course, nothing is the same. I see Joyce's spouse, Gary Hawk,walking up from the creek. He i;ives me a big hug. A short time later, Joyce returnsfrom a walk. How wonderful to see her! She looks calm and centered, but I suspectthat only some of that is real. She just did twice what I only had to do once. Wego inside. I embrace Lamar. I've lost a spouse of 23 years; he's just lost one of h2years. We don't say much, don't have to.July 9, 2004 breaks clear and cool. It's interment day. At 9:30 a.m., Fd, Ed's best


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200 The Sotithern Comm unication Journalcemetery to dig some grave.s. We carry four red granite markersone large headstone for the Hocker plot, and three smaller ones for Janice, Dianne, and Jean. It 'sa short, but hazardous drive that requires every ounce of 4-wheel drive energy Ed'sold Toyota can muster.But once there, som ething's wro ng. The plot feels " o f f som ehow . Ed and Clyde,who worked together for \ 'cars as stone masons, measure and remeasure, but not eventhey can get a lock on the plot's boundaries. We know that Lamar and Jean secured ado ub le lot, and that sh ould ma rk off an area of 15 x 10 feet, but t he hap haz ardlyplaced boundary stakes are nowhere near those dimensions. Frustrated and nowpressed for timethe services begin at 3:00 that afternoonwe head back to Shalomto figure out an alternative plan.

The only "alternative plan" that makes any sense is for Ed and Lamar to head intoTincup and chat with "the cemetery man." And so that's what they do. Sitico onlyabout 20 people inhabit Tincup on a semiregular basis, the cemetery man is not hardto find.

"So what 's the problem?" he asks."The dimensions of our plot seem off," Ed says."Well, they probably are. All I did was stick a few stakes in the ground in the

general area that I^mar indicated.""So what .should we do?""Well, what do you need?"This one catches Ed off guard."What do you mean, 'What do we need?"'"I m ean 'W hat d o you need?' This is Tin cup , not Forest l^v m . W e're a little casual

up here. How much space do you need?""We'd like 10 K 20 feet," Ed says, going for the gold."Take it," the cemetery man says. "Nobody's yonna ask sou to move folks once

they're in the ground."And so Ed and Lamar return to the cabin witli more than they'd bargained for,

and the four of us again scramble into Ed's pick-up and head back to the cetiieteiT,now to dig graves under a definite time bind; it 's almost noon.

I suspect that most graves are dug by cemeter> personnel long before the peoplearrive to fill them. But, like the cemeter\' man said, this is Tincup and not ForestLawn, and so up here you dig your own graves. We had the bare e.ssentialsa pick,shovel, pocket knife, and our hands. The soil is loose and sandy, and that helps. Iscoop out Janice's grave with tny hands, trying to estimate how wide and deep itshould be to ho ld the vase with h er ashes. I catch Ga ry's eye. "1 his is im por tan twork," he says softly, and although it seemed important before he said it, now it feelsas important .is it seemed.

I climb in Ed's pick-up and carefully lift Janice's marker. It's heavy, about 75po un ds, but manage able. I set it just be hind the hole I've dug. After I place her ashesin the ground and cover them, I'll move the stone on top. At least th.it\ the plan. Butit's now 12:45 p.m. and I only have a couple of hours to get back to the cabin, grab a


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A.Wii's of Love 201quick bite, clean up, run through whatever I want to say to and about lanice and getback here. Nothing goes down easy on this day.

It s 2:30 p.m. now and I d;uh out to the car."Do you have Janice's ashes?" Joyce asks."N o 1 don't," I say, incredulously."They might be important," she adds with emphasis."Right," I say, heading back In to retrieve what I'd forgotten. Too many things to

do , and not enough time to do them.We decide to break the service into two parts, the first for K;an, the second for

Dianne and Janice. As we take our places, I glance over at Lamar. He's 87, in fragilehealth, and I know the short, but steep, walk from the cemetery parking lot to thegravesite was hard on him. As Jean's service begins, I see that he's perspiring freely.1 hear him whisper to Clyde: "I'm feeling a little dizzy." Clyde, who seems to have apreternatural instinct tor all such eventualities, immediately produces a folding campchair he's brought so that Lamar might sit. Better, I'm thinking, but there's no wayhe'll be .ible to say anything even remotely coherent about Jean.

Wrong again. When his turn to speak comes, Lamar stands, gathers himselfamid tears and tells an absolutely heartrending story about the moment, morethan 62 years ago, that he proposed to Jean. It's a four de force performance inwhich his God once again inspires this old preacher to remarkable eloquence.'Joyce recites some passages from Mary Oliver's, "In Blackwater Woods," Ed readsJean s obituary, Gary plays "Blessed Be The Ties That Bind" on a flute, I say a fewwords about Jean's artistry, and friends share some personal stories. And so endsthe first service.

We gather again in about 15 minutes. Some people have left, but a surprisingnum be r retu rn. It 's Janice's turn and that m eans it 's my tu rn . I know what I wantto say, I just don 't know quite how I want to say it. So J wait for som e inspiration .W he n it com es, I walk in front of Janice's grave, tur n t o face it and kneel. As soon as 1do , I feel the tears flow. I wait lor them to pass. A cleansing. And then, these fewwords, first to those behind me, and then to Janice:

I 'm going to speak directly to Janice for a moment.Well , my love, you're home now, back in the high couiur\ ' of your l i te. Do youremember the l ines from that John Denver song we so loved?'"Clear waters are laughing.They sing to the sky.The Rockies are living.They never will die." (1973)You rest near clear waters now, and, if you listen carefully, you'll hear them sing toyou as they rush over rocks and lean around bends. And they sing that you too. l ikethe Rockies, are living, you never will die.


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202 The Southern Communication JournalJoyce reads Janice a poem entitled "In the Evening We Shall Be Examined on Love"and concludes with "The Celtic Blessing."

Dianne's turn now. Ed reads two excerpts from remarks he presented at her pre-vious memorial service. Because their love exploded through nature metaphors, heopens v^th "The Mountains, The Canyon, and the Fire" and concludes v^ith "Afterthe Fire." And because Dianne was part Choctaw, Gary plays "The Creation Song"for her on a Native American flute.

Time to cover the graves. Clyde eases the wheelbarrow holding the earth weremoved just that morning in front of Jean's grave. Lamar, Joyce, and Ed carefullycover her ashes. I'm next. I kneel and take the vase containing Janice's ashes inmy hands. I kiss it gently, place it in the grave, and say, "Rest easy, my love, resteasy." I turn, but Clyde's already right behind me. No tools this time. This ishandwork. I pack earth lovingly around the vase. When it 's covered, I smoothand slant the top so that the headstone tilts forward just a bit, making it easierto read. Then, with Ed's help, I ease the headstone into place. Ed's daughterhas gathered bouquets of wild flowers for each grave. For Janice, she's selectedbrilliant, sapph ire-blue Lupines perfectan d I place them at the foot of Janice'smarker.

I need to imprint this place. Janice and Joyce found it many years ago, and Joycetold me that Janice said at the time, "I want to be buried here someday." Now is thatt ime. Today is that day. From Janice's grave site I look across a lush meadow, cutthrough with fast-flovking streams, and inhabited by at least two beaver families,who, I know from experience, will dam the streams and change the water flow inever-renewing patterns. The meadow embraces every shade of green imaginable, fromthe lij-ne-yellow hues of new growth through the deep forests of mature grasses, all theway to the orange-greens of dormant stalks.

My eyes lift to the foothills, cloaked in the emerald of lodge pole pines and theblue-green of lush spruces. Every so often, I catch sight of an Aspen grove, and Iknow that in less than a month, those will turn a brilliant peach in stark contrastto the verdant conifers. Above the foothiUs, at timberline, I see Cumberland Passat 12,000 feet. Bracketing the pass on the right is Green Mountain, and on the leftFitzpatrick Peak, both majestic 13,500 footers still laced with patches of last winter'ssnow.

I see all of this, and know that Janice does as well. I stand to leave, take a few steps,but then I pause, feeling somehow conflicted. Unfinished business. I think about thechorus of the old country song, "Ashes of Love," that I borrowed for the title of thispaper. It goes:

Ashes of love.Cold as ice.You made the debt,I'll pay the price. (Anglin, Anglin, & Wright, 1987)That chorus may be just right for the song, but it 's all wrong for this moment.


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Ashes of Love 203Ashes ol love.Still burn in my heart.I leave you here now.But we're ne\iT apart.

There. Much better. Time to head home now.

Note111 Lamar Hock er died on January 31 , 2005. He, too, now rests in the Tincup cemeter)' beside

his beloved wife, lean, and hi.s daughte r, lanice. He did notdie ol cancer, a small consolationtor those who knew and loved him.

ReferencesAnglin, J., Anglin, I., & W right. I. 1987). Ashes of love. [Recorded by The Desert Rose Band]. On

The desert rose hand [vinyl|. Universal (Jty, CA: MC'A Records.Denver, J. (147='V Rocky mountain suite. OnAn evening with John Denver [vinyl). New York, NY:RCA Records.Rushing, I. H. (2003). // should have been a wedding: Metaphors ot life and death at a funeral. Paperpresented at the meeting ol the National Communication A.ssociation, Miami Beach, FL.


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