Hauntings and Legacies

The difference between a haunting and a legacy is the difference between fear and love.

I don’t have the luxury of wisdom through years of life since I only had three of those. But it’s been almost one hundred years since I laid down in my crib and woke up in this pine box at Elmwood Cemetery, so I think that gives me the right to an opinion.

It has been a strange existence, the immaterial weight of a world passing through me and leaving stories behind. I find myself still hanging on tight to my teddy bear, a loyal companion even as I drift through different realms, watching and now remembering the fleeting moments of fear and love that defined the lives of my parents.

The smell of pine trees and jack-o-lanterns surrounded my Father on the day he was born in October of 1913. My Mother, Alma Pinkston, on the other hand, entered the world wrapped in the warmth of love and promises yet to unfold on Valentine's Day that same year. Their paths converged at Union University, where Father traded bruises on a now-forgotten football field for the soft, tender looks exchanged with Mother.

When they were just 19 years old, they ran away together on October 15, 1932, to St. Francis County, Arkansas to exchange hastily whispered vows. Till death do us part.

Their love, forged in the fervor of youth, was as undeniable as the quickening secrets they held close. And so, just eight months later, I, Richard Glyn Harwood, entered this world in June of the following year. Were their rings exchanged out of fear of judgmental glances or a risk of an eternity in hell? Or out of love for a new life together? I don’t think they could even tell you that. I think it was a little bit of both.

From the pulpit of National Avenue Baptist Church, to the athletic fields of Treadwell Community Center, Fear and Love played a tug of war in Father’s heart. Devotion to his congregation and passion for Mother kept him moving between worlds – a preacher by day and playground director by night. That didn’t leave much time to be a husband.

But it was my passing on April 16, 1937, that splintered their hearts in ways words cannot capture. My Mother’s screams echoed across the city when she found my small, stiff frame still clutching the teddy bear they gave me as an Easter present, and discovered the thin line between haunting memories and immortal legacies.

Just one month later, Father faced the unbearable ordeal of burying me again. At least that is what he felt like was happening when he had to officiate the funeral of 11-year-old Rayford Taylor, a young boy who had drowned while running into the Wolf River, pursuing something he loved. It was said that Rayford's last breath was taken in terror, surrounded by the very waters he had eagerly embraced. To see another young life lost so soon after mine was gut-wrenching for Father. With every word he uttered at Rayford's funeral, the weight of his own grief pressed heavily upon him. Rayford was buried at Elmwood Cemetery, just across those hills over there. And in these quiet halls of eternity, Rayford and I found solace in a friendship that transcended the boundary of life and death.

Soon enough, my parents’ fifth anniversary came around. The traditional gift, as all the busy-bodied Baptist women at church reminded Mother, was wood. I guess you could say they celebrated, but they didn’t celebrate together. Father spent that evening desperately grasping the sides of a wooden pulpit preaching a fiery sermon he had already preached dozens of time. Mother came to visit me.

They were both hurting, and they were both hurting each other. They had sworn to love, cherish, and honor each other until death do them part. But instead of their deaths tearing them apart, it was mine.

Father ran away again, but this time he left Mother behind. I think he tried to leave himself behind too, because he started going by a new name. Mother waited and prayed for him to come back. By January 1939, reports of Mother's filed divorce on grounds of abandonment echoed in the emptiness of their shared dreams. I was angry at him for that. After I was taken from her so suddenly, how could he leave her too? How dare he? It took me a while to understand. And even longer to forgive him.

But amidst the collapse of his dreams, Father found redemption on the battlefields of World War II. Rayford and I watched from the other realm as Father sailed with the Navy. We wondered if he would make it or if he would be overtaken by the water in the same way Rayford was. The fear mirrored our own tragedies, but Father's resilience shined through when he survived the sinking of the USS Yorktown.

When he came up from those salty waters of the Pacific Ocean and gasped for breath, he was a new man. Like the hundreds of congregants he had baptized before, he was ready to live a different life with a new purpose. He was ready to come home.

He knocked hesitantly on that same door he had run out of years before. When Mother came to the door, she looked like she had seen a ghost. Father got down on one knee and begged for forgiveness. She was admittedly relieved, as this exact moment had played in her dreams--and nightmares--over and over since he left. But she was also guarded. “What makes this time different?” she asked. “How do I know you won’t just run away again?” It was a fair question. “Because,” my Father replied, “this time I am running to you.”

And for the first time in a long time, he reminded me of the man that used to tuck me in at night.

Love persevered when they remarried on March 24, 1943, this time in Memphis. Vows spoken once in haste were repeated deliberately, this time after being tried by fire. And this time, they added one: Where you go, I go. Things would be different this time.

They may have reconciled, but that doesn’t mean they recovered. When my parents had me, I was a product of an act of love. But once they lost me, I was a source of fear. Mother couldn’t stand the idea of losing a child again and Father couldn’t stand the idea of losing her again. So it would be years before they were ready to welcome my little, or I guess I should say, eventually older, sister Susan into this world.

Their story wove through townships, churches, and finally, to Kentucky, where Mother Alma breathed her last. I don’t think she ever got over the fear of losing another child, but, then again, she never had to. Just months before Susan turned the same age I was when Mother laid me down for the last time, she came to lay down next to me, sharing my final resting place at Elmwood Cemetery. People cried for my Father as they gazed over at the tiny concrete cradle above my grave, right next to where Mother’s would be. It was just one week before the fifth anniversary of their second marriage, and Mother’s gift to him was another piece of his heart in a wooden box. It was her turn to leave him, and this time, she went where he couldn’t follow.

Their legacy, one I pieced together from the warmth of ephemeral embraces, remains a tender waltz between things that haunted them and things they cherished deeply. In the end, it was their undying love for one another that stood as a reminder – the difference between a haunting and a legacy lies in the heartbeats of fear and love. Even now, I still clutch my teddy bear, witnessing their eternal dance, and I smile, knowing I was a part of their story.