Bobby's View

There is a place in the North Carolina Mountains, it is the place where Bobby grew up. It is still a rural mountain community with a small village but mostly just farm land. It's the hard life of dairy farming, with the never ending task of milking the cows twice a day, every day and some very harsh winters to boot. It is a life from another time and place, yet it is still here.
I did not know Bobby, I only know his story and only a very small part of that. But is is a story that has a hold on me for a lot of reasons but mostly because of how I came to know it, in small bits spread out over time. It seemed to be a story that found me.
I have been a walker all my life. I started walking a a young girl and it has always given me a calmness that little else can match. I love walking in the countryside, here in the very area where Bobby spent his childhood years. I walk along the road in the middle of dairy farms under the watchful eyes of the cows in the field who find me very curious. There aren't many walkers in these parts; they alll work too hard and have little energy left for idly walking.
My favorite walk is up a fairly long and steep incline The surrounding farm land undulates up and down hillsides with the road curving a path thru it. Because of the way the land lays it causes views to appear and disappear depending on the curve of the road and the height of the hills. Walking up this hill at times I can catch a glimpse of an old country church up on a knoll. The road I am on comes to a t-intersection, with both directions heading up hill again. To the right you can walk to Virginia in less than a mile, to the left you can walk to the church up on the knoll.
The church is exacly what you would expect to see here. It is a white clap-board sided building with a modest steeple atop. Over the front door is a sign with the name of the church that says "Established 1886". A big old shade tree stands in the side yard. Out back is the cemetary that stretches even farther up the hill. The church is very non-assuming except for the commanding 360 degree views that surround it.
I am not one of those types that likes cemetaries, especially those types given to ghost stories. But there was something about this one that drew me in. It is fenced and just inside the gate is a wooden cabinet attached to a pole.The hinged door on it is kept closed by inserting a piece of wood thru the latch. You can open the door, it is not kept locked. Inside is a paper diagram of the plots of the cemetary labeled with the name of the deceased, it is sort of like a table of contents for the place.
One weekend we had a couple visiting us in the mountains. He is a childhood friend of my husband. One morning she and I went for a walk. I told her about the cemetary since it seemed like a place that would interest her. And so we headed there on our walk. Once inside the gate we began walking horizontally along the rows looking at the headstones. We started looking at the dates and looking for the oldest, calling out the year every time we found one older than the last. The face of some of the stones was almost smooth with the carvings now mostly gone from years of weather. Reading the stones often tells stories, seeing an infant dead after a week and the mother right next to it gone a month later, probably from grief. We must have walked along a dozen rows or more looking at the head stones.
After a while I noticed way beyond the populated rows, back in the far right corner up on the hill a bit was a marker all to itself. We walked back to have a look. My friend is from Pittsburg and true to their custom is a devout fan of the Steelers. Immediately she noticed the image of a football helmet on the stone and recognized it as a helmet of the Dallas Cowboys. Below the helmet was Bobby's name, his birth date, the date of his death. Noticing the year of his birth I realized that Bobby was my age. The inscription read simply: "Loving Father, Caring Brother". We wondered why the stone was all the way in the back and off to itself, there must be a story that goes with it.
A couple of seasons or two passed - all the while we walked these glorious mountain ranges. Taking in the farm land around us and the majestic Blue Ridge mountains that surround it in the distance. No matter how many times I walked this route - I could never get tired of this scenery. I have walked all over the world and this is my favorite walk, it reaches deep down in my soul.
A season later we returned as always in the late spring. And as usual we walked. One day I was on my own, I had walked to Virginia and to the old church and was heading back. At the top of the ridge I stopped to speak to a neighbor. After talking a few minutes I told him how beautiful I thought the area was and how especially nice the views were from the ridge his house sits on. He thought of this as God's country. He told me there used to be a man who would park his truck just past his driveway at sunrise or sunset and look out over the mountains. It was Bobby, he had grown up just down from the ridge, he must have been looking at the very site where he grew up and the view that he had had all those years ago.
He said that Bobby had taken his own life. His family, distraught and not expecting his death was not prepared and did not know where to bury him. My neighbor goes to the white church up on the knoll and they reached out to the family and told them they knew the perfect place to lay Bobby to rest. As far up on the hill as the cemetary behind the church went, from there you can see the same view that Bobby had sitting in his truck at sunrise and sunset. I told him I knew the very stone he was talking about and had wondered why he was buried there all to himself, never dreaming it was because of the view. I thanked him for the story and it settled into my heart.
Last year our friends were visiting us again. I told them Bobby's story and she remembered seeing his head stone when we had walked the cemetary. We all decided to walk up to the church and look at the head stone again. The first thing our friend noticed looking at the stone was that Bobby was born on the very same date as he was, the same year, they had shared the same birthday. I can't imagine how me and his wife had missed that before. This time I noticed at the bottom of the stone was a carving of the setting sun over the mountains. I had not noticed that before but now I did and I knew why it was there, it was the view that Bobby loved, the view that brought him here.
On and off I think about Bobby. All I know of him was where he grew up, that he was my age, he was born on the exact date of a dear friend, that he loved the Dallas Cowboys and was a loving father and caring brother. I didn't know Bobby, but I know Bobby's view. It brings me great piece and I hope it brought him some too. Rest in peace Bobby.