My friend Grace and I go out every now and then. Trips to the bank, the grocery, pay the utility bills and such. Grab a bite sometimes.
This time of year there's an errand she can't miss or put off to another day.
We drive up Orleans Avenue to City Park, then around behind Delgado College to Holt Cemetery. Holt was established by the city in 1879 as a potter's field for the city's poor, predominately African-Americans. No one's sure exactly where, but Buddy Bolden, widely credited as the father of jazz, lies there, along with Jesse Hill, whose song, Ooh Poo Pah Doo was scrawled on a paper bag during Hill's shift as a trash man, cut the same evening at Cosimo's studio and went on to become one of the iconic songs of New Orleans R&B.
But Grace and I aren't here to visit them. We're here to bring some flowers to her mom, Ms. Elizabeth Shephard. Grace's mom passed away at 72, pretty young for the family. Her brother Charles was relatively short-lived as well. Grace herself takes more after her daddy, Mr. Joseph Shephard, chauffeur for the Godchauxes, the city's once-premier department store owners. Mr. Joseph lived to 90, and it looks likely Grace is going to match him and beat him, with her big 9-0 coming up this summer.
Joseph, Elizabeth and Charles rest at Holt, in one of the many in-ground graves, anomalous in a city famed for its above-ground tombs. Like many of the plots here, her family's is rather humble, marked only by a wooden sign with names and dates. Aside from bringing Ms. Elizabeth some lilies, we're here to repaint the names and clean up a little.
We talk a while, about their lives, the cycle of birthing and dying, what might be the reasons for our time on this earth. On the way home, as she always does when I drive her around, Grace tries to force a $5 bill on me. We fight a lot over those fives, and I usually give in, as Grace is one tough broad.
Not today, though. "No, baby. Today ain't gonna be about any money and you know it. It's a love thing and there's no way I'm going to let you dirty it with that green dirt."
She pretends to put up a fight at first, because that's our way together, but she gives up the pretense quickly. She knows she's not going to win this one.
We ride in silence a while, then she says, "I feel pretty lucky to have y'all, my friends and neighbors."
Yeah, Grace. I know what you mean.