Today it was a cold, wet and miserable day. It was Mother’s Day. George Herman Foster was returning home. We met at the Alderson  Cemetery,  at a piece of West Virginia that held many of his relatives, his wife, Barbara was already there. She waited to spend eternity with her husband of over fifty years. 

There were not many of us, his children, a granddaughter with her husband and child. A few relatives and a few friends.  One friend, who had driven, with his wife, over 200 miles to say goodbye just as George had a few months before driven, with oxygen bottle and all, from Alabama to be with him at the funeral of his brother, but then that’s what friends often do, silly things that mean so much to both. 

A few words were eloquently spoken by his son in law, and then the military honor guard, six old and gnarly veterans in blue blazers fired the salute and then one of them raised the cornet that very cleverly contains a recorded version of the beautiful haunting melody of “Taps”.  Another presented the folded American Flag to his weeping son. 

The rain on the canvas overheard slowly increased in volume and the thunder grew louder with an occasional flash of lightning making one wonder about the possibility of a lightning strike on the metal frame of the shelter incinerating us all where we stood. I am sure there were more than me who hoped the services soon would be concluded. They were over shortly, but not before the wind and the downpour began. A few of the more thoughtful had brought their umbrellas but most of us prepared to get wet. A sudden  stop in the rain sent all of us scurrying for our cars.  We selfishly left the family without a goodbye.  

“Suicide” Foster would likely have enjoyed our discomfiture, for he did dearly love a well done joke as long as no one was hurt or offended, he was, at the last as he was at the first, a young boy of Alderson, Now he was forever young and he rested in the soil of the place he loved best, even more than his beloved cattle farm in Alabama, more than anywhere!