Laying to rest a mountain beauty in Newfoundland

I was 40 minutes outside of North Augusta for Peach Jam last July when the notification popped up, a family group message from my dad: “Mom went fishing with Dad.. 415.”

They were words I knew would come eventually, probably sooner rather than later. She wasn’t in great shape and had a few medical episodes before then. The night before I left, she was on a ventilator and fighting for every word. Upbeat and charismatic, as she’d been my entire life, but struggling and fading. She perked up when I told her I was there, reaching for my hand and squeezing around my palm like she’d done a million times before. A word or two here and there, but mostly limited to head nods and shakes, mouthing phrases when she had the energy for it. I got to show her the latest crawling videos and bathtime pictures of Billy, nine months old at the time. She never missed a chance to share how grateful she was to be able to say that name again beyond prayers. 

William Pilgrim was my grandfather — Billy to friends and family, Willie to his bride and my best friend. I never knew him, dying at 44 when my dad was 17 and his younger brother just 13. When my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, though, we knew the name would be Billy for a boy or Billie for a girl. It wasn’t for grandpa necessarily, but rather grandma’s memory of him and the once-in-a-lifetime love they shared decades before, kept alive through her stories. My goodness, could she tell a story, even if she repeated herself and stumbled over details in later years. I’d beg her to keep going, not obsessing over the slip-ups and instead focusing on what she could remember, because that light bulb going off was magic.

Her favorite — and mine, too — was a stroll through the park, hand-in-hand, enjoying the scenery where they lived in Newfoundland, forever described by her as a work of art made possible only by God’s paintbrush. As she told it, grandpa abruptly dropped to his knees and started ravenously digging in the snow with his bare hands, grandma wondering what in the world her Willie had up his sleeve this time. Then he pulled out a chilled bottle of wine he had stored there beneath the surface with two stemmed glasses to enjoy together at their favorite spot in front of the water.

She loved the notes that hopeless romantic would write her as a former college professor who dabbled in poetry, too.

“I was reading in the gunroom and I heard the back door slam and when I ran into the kitchen I couldn’t see anything wrong ‘cept some a lot a whole bunch of your punkin’ cookies was gone. Honest!!!” one read, signed Billy.

“Always, while I sit reading my textbooks late into the night, I begin thinking of you and I recall so many of the things we’ve done together,” said another. “And I recall the joy and happiness you’ve brought into my life — and the two fine sons you’ve given me. And the sacrifices you’ve made for our marriage and how abysmally alone I can feel when I am away from you.

“And then I recall a time in the Yucatán when you casually stepped over my spread-eagled and all-but-dying body and went shopping — because it was your last day in Mexico.

“And it is then that I remember what a selfish, rotten little devil you really are.”

They had their own humor and way to communicate or show affection, complicated but uniquely them — soulmate stuff, truly. A decade of those memories — no better memories, she’d argue — took place in Newfoundland. There, they worked at the local school on the military base, but owned a bar and fished and bowled and hosted parties that would make Jay Gatsby tip his cap. Toughest of all, they did their best keeping their daredevil sons alive at the peak of their teenage fearlessness. Grandma always joked she had no idea how they survived the dirt bike crashes and the rest of the nonsense they got themselves into, but she and Billy had the best time helping ‘em beat those odds in the most beautiful place on earth.

When grandpa died in 1980, they packed up and left both due to their job/life/financial situation and to distance themselves from the trauma. They went to Minnesota where my dad met my mom, plus stops in North Dakota and California before UPS brought my dad — a pilot — to Louisville, and the rest is history. 

Grandma followed and was around ever since, right in the mix with my earliest memories and formative moments. She never missed a thing, especially when my parents separated and she stepped in as my daily babysitter and shield from the complexities of joint custody. My dad, brother and I moved in with her for a period of time between permanent setups, grandma somehow making a tiny two-bedroom condo feel plenty big for all of us in my counter-high view. When the adults needed to be adults, she was there to be a kid with me, riding down to Waterfront Park to walk miles at the river and swing on the monkey bars, hunt ghosts at the Seelbach Hotel, grab a scoop of ice cream at Graeters or go see Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie — pretending to love it before admitting years later it was the worst thing she’d ever seen, a day we laughed about countless times down the road. When both of my parents remarried and found perfect new companions, she was there to tell me I had nothing to worry about — I didn’t want my last name to change just because my mom was getting a new one, her response exactly what I needed at the time: “You’ll always be a Pilgrim.”

Just like grandma. She never changed her name after grandpa passed and I wouldn’t have to either.

We had a thing where she’d tell me she loved me, and I’d quickly reply that I loved her more. She’d always try to one-up me and say, “You couldn’t — I knew you first,” somehow and wrongly thinking quantity topped quality, but I digress. There are worse fights to have. That last night in the hospital, we got in that same argument again, this time certain I’d win.

“I love you more, and this time you can’t respond back,” celebrating my automatic TKO thanks to the ridiculous breathing tube that pissed her off in the most hilarious way. Then, like always, that selfish, rotten little devil did what she does best.

“I love you more,” she clearly mouthed back, one slow step at a time, followed by that damned got-ya grin.

I gave her a hug and kiss goodbye — plus an extra set from Billy, who was back home doing nine-month-old things with mom. The next day, she went fishing with grandpa again for the first time in 44 years.

She said forever that when she passed away, her one request was to go home to Newfoundland where her Willie was buried. Instead of joining him in the traditional sense, though, she liked the idea of having her ashes spread in the water or somewhere familiar and meaningful — whatever felt right. 

For her birthday, July 8 — a day after mine, fittingly — we brought her home almost a year later to the day after passing on July 18, 2024. It was a trip nearly five decades in the making, my dad and uncle returning for the first time after losing their own dad. I joined them, along with their spouses, to do everything grandma would want, hoping to replace some of the past tragedy and the lack of closure that came with it with new, fresh lifelong memories.

We went and enjoyed the ocean and rolling hills, the fog separating the water and sky, the cliffs and rocks with wildlife like something out of a nature documentary. What started as a boat tour with a local became a new friendship, the guide inviting us to go cod fishing with him the next morning where we went sea to pan (and gut), cooked right up for us in his own home. I got to go fishing with my dad in the same waters where they went fishing with their mom and dad — on my birthday, no less.

On her day, we started at grandpa’s grave, then to a nearby river that matched her beauty down to the pebble and pinecone. We cried together watching the stream take her to the ocean along with some marigolds and daisies we picked for her, the sun shining down on us in a town more familiar with clouds and rain. My dad then showed us around their old stomping grounds, walking the same steps my grandma and grandpa did in their heyday. We took a shot of Jameson — one of their favorites together — at some of the key spots as her stories came to life after being no more than a legend left to the imagination all my life.

Their original home wasn’t there, but some of the foundation remained, the last place my grandparents lived and built a life together. The school where my dad graduated, grandpa was a teacher — where he died, sadly — and grandma was a nurse had been closed and boarded up, but the attached gym where my dad played basketball was still alive and repurposed as a heavy machinery repair shop with the original tile still intact. That was the last time they were together before he passed, obviously bittersweet, but part of the story that led to where we are today. The old summer camp with log cabins, trap and skeet range, bowling alley and underground bunker, it was all there and enough.

And the nature, most importantly, is forever.

It wasn’t about what had changed in the 45 years since anyone had been back, but rather the gems that remained and the privilege it was to see it and feel it the way they did, bringing my favorite person in the world back to her favorite place in the world. It was a hole in my heart that needed to be filled and the closure I never got — certainly not while distracting myself with AAU basketball and mingling with coaches at Peach Jam just hours after she passed. Life moved on when I returned home, but I couldn’t.

It wasn’t Virgie, but a poet from Lawrence County said it better than I ever could — laying to rest a mountain beauty that the Lord’s called home was the honor of my life. I got to see her up in glory, through the pines, saying, “Boys be good.”

Only I got to respond back, “I love you more.”