A Heart of Dixie

When I planned a return home to Alabama a few months ago, I did not do so with the intention of it being a meaningful trip. I had the week off; it lined up with the University of Alabama's senior performances, and the plane tickets were unusually cheap. Little did I know how much this visit would come to rejuvenate me. As a child, my first word was "bye," and from there I have not stopped trying to get out of Alabama to places that were further off and more exotic. I eventually grew to appreciate my home more and more each time I returned to it, but until now I had never left with the understanding that I would never call Alabama my home. It was very Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows minus Voldemort showing up as I drove away, though admittedly that would have been awesome and terrifying.

It was not lost on me that my selected dates of travel included the two year anniversary of the April 27th tornadoes. After my aunt passed away a few weeks ago, I had the idea of spreading some of her ashes at the location of her home in Phil Campbell. My family took to the idea, and it quickly grew into a larger affair including a memorial service at a church up the road in Bear Creek where my grandfather was the head football coach for so long they named the stadium after him. I had already planned to spend the night before Tuscaloosa, and because I deplore driving I had asked my friend Sarah to ride up with me into the far reaches of Northwest Alabama. She has family in the area as well, so we just made it an event. It was a tour of former small industry hubs turned Southern ghost towns as urbanization draws young people into the city and away from their rural homes.

I have fallen victim to that process myself leaving the "small" city of Birmingham for the lure of Washington D.C., but this return to the deeper sections of my family tree's roots instilled my love of Southern geography and culture. As Sarah and I drove through the lush green forests and over the tiny creeks that stem off from the main river veins of the state, I realized not for the first time how much a part of me Alabama is. Life is so simple within the realm of slow accents and savory meals. All of that gets lost in the fast paces life of walking, metros, and work.

I had no idea what to expect when we pulled up to the Methodist church in Bear Creek. Most things were pretty standard for any Southern event like a potluck and a lack of ethnic diversity, but what I was not ready for was during the service when everyone was given the opportunity to speak about my aunt and what they had meant to her. I knew so few of the people, but the pastor asked me if I'd say something. I felt improv would cause me to be a teary mess while babbling on, so I chose to read something and be a teary mess with a plan. I read my last blog post since it had been the inspiration for the preacher's eulogy at the actual funeral in Chattanooga.

I had forgotten what I had written in that last post, and when it got to the part about the tornado I could barely speak through my tears. Even two years later this event has such a profound effect one me and it always will. After the service we went to my grandfather's football field to take pictures since we now have no reason to return, and he told me about how he dug out the place for the bleachers to be laid in the hill when he first got there. Once we got to where their homes were, he told me about all the trees he had planted that were still standing and the irises and lilies species he had created in his pursuit of a black flower. I can only describe the feeling of being back there like that of being a stranger in a familiar place. There were things I recognized like where my dog Scraffy was buried or the Piggly Wiggly where Barrack Obama landed to see the damage, but the flatness of the land was unsettling. Where houses stood and memories permeated the heavy air, now there was nothing.

The purpose of our our visit kept me from being lost completely in nostalgia. We had brought my aunt home and left part of her there where she was her bravest battling disease and tornadoes and still fighting on. Two years ago she sat in that house alone in a wheelchair while the roof was ripped off of it and debris punctured the walls. My grandmother was in almost the same situation next door as she someone convinced several dogs and a cat to get into the basement as it hit. I only hope that I can show as much bravery in my life as the two of them showed not only that day but in their lives as well.

As I watched my grandmother release a fistful of ashes into the air with tears in her eyes, I saw the wind take them and swirl them away over the earth. I truly realized how beautiful and important this state is to me. Even with its negative publicity the state attracts that I myself shake my head at sometimes, Alabama has given so much to me: a family, friends, a job with a purpose, and I gave all of myself back. I may never own a house or apartment here at any point in my life, but I will always call it my home because I have a heart filled with Dixie.