Wes. Wesley, you… Wesley Byron Cramer, you great uncle, you sad, wonderful, gentle, young man…
Wes, you came to us in the winter of 1958, back when cars had great big chrome bumpers and hubcaps like mirrors. Down by the sea that day, in Westport, at a school by the dunes, your sister sang the joy of your new life. She ran through the halls, ringing in your new year, your shiny new run at life.
Your first days must have been wintergreen, fresh with cold briny air off the sea, washed clean in clear rain. In your first spring you heard the sound of ocean waves. You fell asleep to that sound, and to the gentle whisper of sand rolling in the wind.
There was a big tangle of driftwood in a grassy sandy patch by your boyhood home – and that’s the place I first remember you. My memory runs like a super 8 movie, no sound, the white of your shirt very bright, like sun reflected in a window:
Your arms looked long as you pulled yourself up the driftwood. When you got to the top, you looked down at me. You were still a young boy and you seemed a little worried you might fall. I could not follow you up, so you climbed back down.
You climbed back down and you stayed there with me. You stayed to play and to teach. It was wonderful being kids together, you and me. The years rolled by for us in what felt like an unending parade of Christmases and summer vacations.
I remember Wes-port (even after I learned they hadn’t named the town after you, it stayed Wes-port for me); I remember Seattle Center and the Science Center (the first time I recall riding to the top of the space needle, it was with you, and the Science Center was a few acres of heaven for us both).
I remember the summer times when you stayed with us in Graham. You and I played for countless hours under the open sky. Much of the time we’d be ankle-deep in water or mud in those ponds down in our pasture. Other times we’d enjoy the cool of the green grass on our toes, or the silkiness of newly-plowed garden soil. There were fish in the lakes nearby, two fairs every summer (one with a taffy machine), and apples on the trees.
In the distance, great, white, reassuring Rainier looked down on us. We both saw it there, felt it there, but I don’t think we talked about it much. It was just a good thing that we assumed was there for us, that somehow cared for us -- like the woods, like the lilac trees, like the rose bushes, the grass, the shady cool spaces between the big rocks -- like God.
We did, however, talk about so many other things:
Tadpoles, frogs (of course), the planets, daffodils, dinosaurs. Fossils. (We looked, but never found any, in Graham. I was content with the little flecks of mica you showed me inside the granite boulders – they glittered like snow in the winter, like stars in a little hidden universe.)
When you were little, you were such a cheerful sight. I remember you with your hair in a bowl cut. That dark hair, almost black, stood out so sharply against the paleness of your skin. Some heavy horn rim glasses on your fine face, those bright white t-shirts you liked to wear on your light frame – it was all a little comical, it was all so beautiful. You were a beautiful child.
I remember rainy winter days in Holly Hills. You and I would leave the cozy confines of grandma and grandpa’s double wide. We’d go outside to the porch and watch fine, cold rain fall on the dark green grass and on the little bright patches of crusty snow. Then, maybe, we’d walk into the woods a little ways, or over to the “Wreck” center to watch old guys play shuffleboard. When we were plenty soaked and frozen, we’d fly back to the warm cocoon of the trailer with its snuggly gold wall-to-wall carpet. There we’d watch the grandfathers talk about presidents and drink dark drinks on ice.
Sometimes, I’d go out in the woods by myself in the evening. You’d give me a walkie talkie, and then you’d stay behind in the mobile home. Grandpa helped you tune in my frequency in on his big ham radio. I’d walk among the trees in that big wood, farther and farther away in the gathering dark, talking with you on the radio. When your voice got too faint to hear, we’d switch over to Morse code. Then I’d keep walking farther, listening to and sending little beeps. Finally, deep in the dark heart of the forest, I’d lose you in the static. Because of you I knew static was the background noise of the deep universe, a frozen echo of the big bang. My skin would go chill and I’d rush home, nervously watching behind me for shadows in the dark.
You were my Encyclopedia Brown. My boy genius. I figured you knew pretty much everything, and what you didn’t know, you could look up in your extensive in-home library. Or, if we came up against a real poser, we would walk to the Bothell library for answers. (On the way, we gazed in wonder at the world’s largest live Christmas tree. On the way back, we chose one of Baskin Robin’s 51 flavors.)
Wes, you could wire, glue, rivet, solder anything together with anything and come up with a wondrous miracle, a boy’s dream: Watch’ya gonna do with those old lawnmower parts, and that chainsaw engine, Wes? Why, make a high-speed, remote control robot, of course. We set the world robot land speed record back in the 70’s. Our achievement stands unchallenged to this day.
We built a rocket. It used liquid fuel. It was big. We didn’t have the formula quite right. On launch day, our brave craft flew 10 feet vertically before detonating and flying 500 feet simultaneously in every other available dimension. Thankfully, you had taken the precaution of placing me behind a very wide, very sturdy maple tree.
We made rockets, we made telescopes, we collected rocks, we dug for fossils on Chukanut Drive, we made radio control planes and boats and cars and robots. We laughed at silly popular songs, and at silly TV. You tried out new hair styles every few years and I tried to copy you (I remember long and scruffy, then wavy and feathery, then flipped and sculpted.) I walked with you and your cool friends through woods – your cigarettes smelled good in the rain. You, me, Gary and Daryl frequently got the heebie jeebies from watching too many monster movies on “Nightmare Theater” at 2 a.m., with our bellies full of Coca Cola, microwaved hot dogs and pomegranate seeds.
They were good times for me, Wes, and you did so much to make them good. I think – and hope -- that you had as much fun as I had.
We got older, I went off to college. Then back east for more college. So much changed while I was away. Your father died, and that hurt you so deeply.
You began working yourself very hard, pouring cement, building fences. And when you weren’t working you didn’t really rest, because you needed to find more work. It never came easy, so you were always looking, trying to find a few good breaks and string them together -- You knew there had to be a way to fasten it all up in a new way and make it work.
Even in the most difficult times, you found a way to laugh long and hard. I remember watching you laugh over holiday meals, your classic nose stretched down as you fought to keep your lips together over an ill-time mouthful.
So many people have always reminded me of you, and it’s especially true now -- I see your face everywhere. I see you in Gregory Peck, in Harry Dean Stanton, and perhaps most of all, in Johnny Cash. Johnny sang about working men, suffering men, funny men, soulful men. He sang a song about the loneliness of Sunday morning sidewalks. I think about that long stretch of road between your last home and the golf course where you worked. There are long empty sidewalks along the way, and one cheerful patch next to a grade school. I worry that many days you were hurting when you pedaled your bike along that way. Your shoulder would have bothered you; the air was cold on your lungs. I know you worried about money, doctor bills, phone bills. I wonder what you felt as you watched the children playing at the school. I wonder if you thought about you and me playing together long ago in happier times. When you got to work at the course, I think you saw extra shades of meaning in phrases like “sand trap” and “teed off.”
You were such a gentle man, and that is the only right way to remember you. But I do not forget that you came from a line of men with sand in their guts, fire in their bellies. You felt it. Sometimes it gnawed at you when your better nature held you back from a fight. So instead, you turned it all back on yourself.
One cold autumn night, we sat in your old rabbit car and talked. You were in pain. Your father had died not long before, and your brother Gary was very ill. There was ice on the inside of the windows, and the air smelled of all the many fluids the tired car was losing. A little motor oil dripped on my shoes from the pressure gauge you had installed. At one point you looked over at me and said, “All this dying has to stop.” For a moment I even thought you might propose a workable plan. You were, after all, the boy genius, the one who could do anything with enough gumption, enough wire, enough wheels and pulleys.
Wes, you built strong fences that kept mostly you out. You laid foundations for the kinds of homes you’d never own. You groomed the field for a game you could not play. When you were a little boy, you wrote me a plan for finding riches. There was even a diagram, laid out carefully on graph paper. You said “dig down 1 mile for gold, 10 miles for diamonds.” The years came and went and I saw your disappointment grow in a thousand miles of empty trenches.
But to honor Wes, we must forget that now. Because much more than disappointment, what I saw growing in Wes’ miles of trenches was… Tomatoes. And peas, carrots, corn and roses. With a careful, tender, nurturing spirit, Wes grew his plants and gave them a chance at life. He grew the garden to share with his family, to help us thrive. I think Wes’s greatest joy came from the beauty he saw in his growing family circle.
What I saw Wes grow all around him was hope. To his last day, in the sandy soil behind his trailer (though far from the sea, so much like Westport soil), among a collection of seashells he had saved, Wes was growing strawberries. Wes was always growing things with hope for tomorrow, a hope that the little things he loved today would live well in the days to come. Wes’ hope is alive as long as we follow his example.
I am not a bit surprised that my boy genius uncle found a way to put all the pieces together, to transcend his pain, and to live on here among us, for as long as we love our children, and they love theirs.
Long ago, when he returned from a boyhood trip to the southwest, Wes gave me a desert rose. It was a little circle of warm red sandstone, with furrows that looked like petals.
Wes made a living forming hard cement in a land that can be as unforgiving as the desert. He had patience and hope enough to work onward, quietly, steadily. He is the time, the wind, the rain that carves roses from desert sandstone.
Life can be very hard, on days like today we feel that hardness especially. But Wes taught me not to care about that too much – to care instead for the things that really matter each day: Your little patch of garden, the little kids playing there, the games they are playing, the funny words they are saying. When I help a child laugh and learn, I’ll think of Wes. When there’s an impossible task, a hopeless case, a project laughably sure to fail, I’ll keep at it with the patience of the wind molding sand dunes – Wes’ patience.
When it feels like there’s really no real reason to go on with anything much at all, I will certainly go on, the way Wes taught me to.
Get your rest now, Wes, beside your father who was the world, the foundation rock for you; in the hearts of the family you loved; in sight of these hills you wandered with us; in the open sky we explored together.
Wes. Wesley, you… Wesley Byron Cramer, you great uncle, you little boy, you sad, wonderful, gentle, young man. You tender heart, you kind soul. Our son, our brother, our friend, we miss you, we love you, we’ll be seeing you.