The Mountains Are Calling

by Liz Alley

For the first time in my life, the mountains and I have been at odds with each other. They called but I did not go. This separation was different than when I left for college, those were carefree days of finding myself, while knowing the mountains were there if I needed them. This time, I wasn’t sure the mountains would be the same after a self-induced estrangement. I wasn’t sure if I’d find comfort in the sturdiness of Tiger Mountain or in the sun’s shadows in the valley of Pleasant Place Road or even in the fact that the little blue house in Tiger was safe and secure holding the place where I grew up. What to do with all these emotions? What to do with the feeling that the mountains were somehow responsible for dad’s garden not being plowed with neat rows of silver queen corn shimmering in the hazy sun? How could I escape the knot in my gut knowing my mother wasn’t nestled safe in her home at the foot of the mountain in Tiger? I was wrestling with the mountains and I turned my back on them until I was trumped once and for all. It was my dad’s death that forced the standoff to end. When my mother got COVID-19 in September of last year, survived it, then survived the rehab that went with it, my siblings and I decided the best place for her to recover would be my sister Lisa’s house, just a few miles from me in Newnan. Something happened mentally to me when Mom was not in Tiger anymore, something closed up in me and I couldn’t bear the thought of the mountains without my parents. I longed for them, my parents and my mountains, but I could not seem to reconcile them in my mind. When Dad died and I drove from Newnan to Tiger, I kept rearranging the words that looped through my head by Emily Dickenson “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me; The carriage held just me and him and immortality.” I rearranged the words to “Because I could not think of death, it finally forced me to see; That the carriage held just him and Dad and immortality.” And, I was reminded mile after mile of the words by Markus Zusak “Death waits for no man – and if he does, he doesn’t usually wait for long.” “How” I wondered “will the mountains receive me? Will their shadowy memories overtake me? Will the familiarity overcome me? Will the cross that’s backlit against the inky dark sky of Black Rock Mountain be the refuge as promised?” The jig was up, it was time to go home. Instead of Tallulah Falls being the point where my anxiety from the city begins to dissipate, this time it was the point where my anxiety began to mount. I decided to turn by Goats on The Roof, not ready to go by the old homeplace yet. As I made my way up the incline to Tiger, I pulled over at the top of the hill to gaze from a distance at the back of our old house. “Speak to me,” I whispered and the breeze picked up, rolled through the valley and lifted the hair off my face in what felt like a gentle touch. I glanced at the small tattoo on my wrist with the word “Hireath” a Welsh word meaning “nostalgia for lost places”. This word seems to be the story of my life, perhaps it is the story of all lives. The day we buried Dad was rainy and cool. Out of a fourteen day stretch, that was the only day for rain. It seemed appropriate for broken hearts, that Dad’s funeral was when the sky was crying, instead of on a bright sunny day. I fell into the nest of my family, into the solace of the people in Rabun County who I love, into the warmth of fried chicken and the fellowship hall at Tiger Baptist, into the bugle that echoed off the mountains at the graveside and into Tiger itself where Dad was received back into the earth. I fell and I fell and I fell until the ache began to lessen on the winding roads of Wiley, the reflections in Lake Burton and the fields of Dillard.

I like to think of Dad fishing on a beautiful mountain lake in Glory or walking among rows of Silver Queen corn made of gold, which surely The Lord in all His wisdom would have in heaven. I imagine Dad sitting down to a meal with biscuits piled high on a platter and red tomato slices with a dollop of mayonnaise, The Lord would surely want this to be a part of heaven too. Whatever heaven is like, it would have to be an even better version of Rabun County, where God has done some of his best work. Until I get there, I’m glad the mountains still call me and I’m glad they are still home.

Liz Alley was born and raised in Rabun County in the city of Tiger. She loves to write. She is an interior designer specializing in repurposing the broken, tarnished, chipped, faded, worn and weathered into pieces that are precious again. She is the mother of two daughters and has two grandchildren. She divides her time between her home in Newnan and Rabun County.