Horace Kephart Day

May 1st was Horace Kephart day in Bryson City, NC, and my brother who, as the sole male of this generation, carries our last name forward, was there among cousins, librarians, enthusiasts, and scholars to commemorate this author-naturalist-woodsman who, among other things, penned Our Southern Highlanders and contributed to the preservation of the Great Smoky Mountains with the creation of the national park. I have written about my great-grandfather, not just on this blog, but in the pages of Tin House. I have thought about him often—of the family he left behind to live the life he chose, of the rising earth he fought to save, of the people who came to think of him as their own.

But my brother was the one who traveled south this past weekend to remember this enigmatic soul, and last night, on the phone, he told me of what he'd seen there, of what he'd heard. It's the story of my great grandfather's funeral that I wake up thinking of today—the story of how countless multitudes emerged from the hills to honor the man who had honored them, to roll a boulder into place so that no one would ever forget.

"I saw photographs," my brother said. "Everyone came." Even two of the sons who had not seen their father for years and who loved him despite the absence, despite all that he could not be for them.