McCleary
By INGRID MCCLEARY
We set out with nothing but a few faded photographs--and even fainter memories--to guide us. My sister, Jessie, my niece, Tara, and me, three explorers with treasure map in hand, trying to locate the spot where my brother-in-law Scotty wanted his ashes spread.
This we knew: It was off Tioga Road, just past Yosemite's east gate, but before the steep grade leading into Lee Vining. Scotty called it Walker Meadows, though it wasn't named on any map. Jessie was sure the dirt-road entrance was on the left side. And we had three photographs of the mountains that we thought were taken from Tioga Road.
This we also knew: We hadn't been there in 20 years. Places change. Memories fade.
But surely mountain ranges don't change that much? Could we reconcile the snowcapped mountains with the naked versions in the photographs?
We showed the pictures to gas-station attendants, to rangers, to the Tioga Pass Resort owners. No one recognized the crags, the slopes, the unique ridges. The dismal conclusion? These pictures must have been taken from the camp interior. Our hope dwindled.
The first night, I noticed neither Jessie nor Tara finished her dinner. I asked, "Is it because we don't know if we'll find the spot?"
My sister nodded, "Yes, that ... and because Scotty used to finish what we couldn't eat."
I thought of how often my own husband did the same thing. And once again, Scotty's absence loomed large, bringing with it razor-sharp pain.
The next day dawned, delivering an azure sky, a cool breeze and a man named Jose. These 10,000-foot mountains were Jose's back yard.
"Yep," he said. "This is Warren Canyon, about five miles up the road. Go past Ellery Lake, past the gorge, and at the bottom of the third hairpin curve, pull over. The road ain't there anymore; river's taken it over. But if you hike in a bit, you'll see that mountain there."
I almost kissed him; I was that glad. We took to the road, feeling victorious as we located each landmark Jose had noted. We hiked till we spotted the mountain, then hiked in further till the view matched the exact angle of the photograph clutched in my hand.
I promptly took new pictures with the intention of gluing the new ones onto the back of the old ones, thereby cementing the past with the present and securing the future. As I did, memories flooded over me. Here I'd walked over the spongy ground. Here Scotty stood alive and well. Here was the campsite, though nature had reclaimed it. Warren Canyon? Walker Meadows? No. To us, it would forever be called Scotty's Meadow.
Somehow we'd brought a misty past into sharp focus. It reminded me of how big a part memories play in our lives. Each of us is a culmination of past events. And nowhere have I felt the passage of time more keenly than in that meadow. Not from the surroundings, for there, in earth's primal setting, nature remained unscathed. It was us, the human visitors, who'd changed so drastically.
The last time I was here with them, Tara was only 4 months old. Tara is the same age now that I was then, when I'd carried her on my back over these self-same grasses.
Watching her, with the snow on her left and the sun shining on her hair, I vowed right then and there I'd return in 20 years to take new pictures and create a chain of time held together by love.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 17, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.