Flyover People
Cheryl Unruh
Originally published 02:13 p.m., July 15, 2008
Updated 02:13 p.m., July 15, 2008
Bunny ears — most family albums have them, a picture with a boy raising two fingers behind a sister’s head.
If you open a photo album of a typical Kansas family, you’re likely to see birthday cakes ablaze, ornament-laden Christmas trees, views from the top of Pike’s Peak.
You’ll probably find snapshots of kids riding bicycles, teenagers dressed for the prom, folks at a picnic table eating hot dogs and baked beans.
The other day while looking through Dave’s family albums, I saw pictures of a little-girl tea party, a game of lawn darts, and the nuclear family (two parents, four boys, one girl) lined up on their front porch.
The Leiker albums also hold photographs from the annual family campouts.
For years, Dave’s family set up tents at one Kansas lake or another. I joined the fun in the early ‘90s and we’d cook hamburgers, and bait hooks, and swat mosquitoes.
At the campouts, there was an annual competition. The first year I was part of the family, the challenge was to build a solar-powered coffee maker. Dave’s brother, Larry, won that contest. Larry built a large, silver-colored parabola which boiled water faster than Mr. Coffee.
Another year, at Council Grove Lake, the contest was to construct the best water balloon launcher. Curt and Nancy won with a huge contraption they had hauled behind their truck. It was probably sturdy enough to launch a calf (not that we’d do that.)
So the Leiker family albums are filled with photos of holidays, happy events, and weekends at the lake.
What you’re unlikely to find in theirs or anyone’s family albums are the painful experiences. These are the things we don’t photograph.
The family has been visited by one of those difficult times. On June 22, Dave’s sister, Deborah, 55, received a severe head injury in a workplace accident in Salina. She was flown to Wichita’s St. Francis Hospital, where the family gathered around their unconscious daughter, sister, sister-in-law, aunt.
A tragic time like this is part of the family history. But it’s not something you’d want to put in an album and return to; heartrending events are not something we record.
Nevertheless, in the hospital, I saw poignancy in so many moments: I watched Clara place her hand on Deb’s arm. She leaned over, “Hi, Debbie, it’s Mom. We’re all here. We’re all here for you.”
A moving photo could have been made of Henry, as he stood behind his wife of 68 years, his hands on Clara’s shoulders.
There would be such tenderness shown if I had captured Dave’s hand brushing Deb’s hair to the side. And there was Larry with red-rimmed eyes, sitting near the bed.
These were sacred moments, the final days of a loved one’s life.
Leaving the Trauma-Surgical Intensive Care Unit one afternoon, a story-telling picture could have been taken from behind as Curt and Nancy walked down the fluorescent-lit hallway, arms around each other’s waist, shoulders slumped in sadness.
At 4 a.m. one morning, as Dave and I entered the hospital room to relieve Jim, we found him sitting beside Deb, his hand wrapped around his sister’s.
“The only thing I ask,” Jim said, “is that you hold her hand. I’ve been holding it for like 11 hours now.”
During that nine-day vigil, there were many silent minutes, when no words were spoken.
These are the photographs that we don’t take. Instead, we use our photo albums to recall the good times: Deb holding up a basket of fish she caught, or launching a water balloon, Deb bent over laughing.
It’s the happy moments that we document and cherish.
Someday soon, we will look at the albums again. Our fingers will pause on photos of the family campouts.
Because remembering the sound of each other’s laughter will always return us to our joy.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.