Respects from 30,000 feet

My flight to St. Louis left LAX and headed toward the desert. The pilot said we could see Las Vegas from the left side of the plane. Sure enough, there was the strip, the speedway and I-15 winding off into the distance. A few minutes later, I saw the long strip of green marking Overton, NV, a little town about 50 miles northeast of glittery Las Vegas.

My dad's biological father is buried in Overton in a cemetery at the end of a runway--an apt final resting place for a pilot. Glen Haren was a dashing fellow and my dad is a chip off the old genetic block. Mom showed me a picture of Glen by a plane dressed for flight and I thought it was my dad.

Glen's second wife, Carlotta, has joined him in Overton. Dad and I drove up to her memorial service in October 2004. We got a late start leaving the funeral home but soon caught up to the long processional following the white hearse out of town.

When we arrived at the cemetery, we saw that the hole was the only part of the preparations completed before the crew went to lunch. So we stood in the sun and waited, then watched as the workman lowered the crypt into the ground, set up scaffolding to hold the coffin, pitched the shade tent, set up chairs for the service and covered the displaced dirt with an incongruous swatch of green Astroturf.

It was quite a spectacle, start to finish. The grieving adults seemed transfixed watching the process. They'd snap out of it long enough to keep the great-grandkids from throwing rocks in the hole. The older grandkids had placed tributes on Glen's headstone: a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack Daniels. For Carlotta, they brought flowers.

Carlotta knew Glen had been married before and had a son, so she wasn't completely surprised when my dad contacted her. Sadly, Glen died 5 years before my dad unraveled the convoluted family history and discovered his biological father and the dad he grew up with were not the same guy.

Carlotta opened her home and heart to my dad. Most of his step-siblings did likewise, and we became part of an enormous, loosely Mormon, car-restoring/repairing, sometimes-feuding clan of Harens and Carlotta's house was the hub.

I start my chapter as stepmother soon. As I do, I'd like to take a page from Carlotta's book of hospitality. No matter who turned up at her doorstep, she'd take them in, have a long talk, make them feel welcome and feed them--physical or emotional nourishment, whichever was needed. I'd like to be at the hub of such a warm, loving, open operation.

Cheers, Carlotta and Glen. Nice seeing you again.