Backhoes and Boulders

I've attended a lot of funerals, memorial services and the oddly-named "celebrations of life" recently. That's just one of the downsides to growing older. But I had never been to an actual burial. That is, before last year.

The sad occasion was the passing of my brother-in-law, Peter Scheideman, at the age of 52. To make a long story short, he took his own life to avoid the debilitating decline brought on by his advancing multiple sclerosis. I've read that suicide is actually the leading cause of death from MS, as people see their ability to function slowly slip away and decide to cut short the indignity of the disease's final stages, while they are still able to act by themselves.

In his will, Peter asked to be buried in Eureka, Nevada, a tiny mining town on Highway 50, some 100 miles due south from where he had once tamed the Wild West at the XJ Ranch, near Elko. So that is how we found ourselves at the Owl Club Casino, the only restaurant in town, one Sunday morning in June 2009. Our group that morning included my brother, John; my sister and Peter's wife, Kathy, and their children, Courtney, Gus and Peter. We ordered some food and coffee and started catching up on events.



More mourners arrived, including Peter's mother, Carol, and her husband; Peter's sister, Jill, and brother, Bob; and close friends, Chad and Will Childers, along with their mother, Leslie. Meanwhile, outside the weather turned ominous. Brief, but intense thunder showers swept up Highway 50, which was the main street through town.

Just then, the cafe door swung open. A unidentified man, obviously looking for someone, stood on the threshhold and scanned the dark interior, just like a gunslinger in an old cowboy movie. My sister recognized him and read his expression perfectly. "All right, Mike, what is it now?" It turned out that Mike was the funeral director, who had driven the hearse down from Elko. How Kathy knew that something was amiss, I don't know, but Peter's response quickly confirmed her suspicions. "We have a problem," he said, sounding an awful lot like the Apollo 13 astronauts, "We don't have a hole dug. They're trying right now to find the guy who runs the backhoe. But, since it's the weekend, they're not sure where he is." After a short discussion, we were told to sit tight and he would let us know.

After an hour or so, we got the news that the backhoe operator had been located and we could proceed to the graveyard. We piled into our cars and, after a couple of wrong turns, found the correct road that led past the city corporation yard to the aptly and simply named Cemetery Hill. As we approached, another brief storm hit and we saw a big bolt of lightning hit a tree in the distance. Nervous laughter broke the somber mood.


The old part of the Eureka cemetery.

 The Eureka cemetery is divided into two sections. The older one has orderly rows of gravestones, crosses and memorials, many dating back to the beginning of the 19th century. The newer part consists of a broad hillside studded with short pines and facing the Diamond Mountains. Apparently, Peter liked them even more than the Ruby Mountains that rose above his and Kathy's former ranch. Grave sites are distributed about, seemingly at random, and his final resting spot was indicated simply by an outline where someone had dragged a foot to show the desired orientation. As we stood there, the backhoe man lumbered up the hill in his machine and Mike suggested we wait by the cars while the man went about his work.

We congregated around the hearse, as the sounds of digging through the rocky soil could be heard from nearby. Mike strolled over and Kathy asked how long it would take. His response was not very encouraging, "Could be only an hour, though one time it took three days to dig through all the rocks." Even as he spoke, the backhoe clanged repeatedly off a large stone and we wondered which it would be.

Had the grave been ready when we arrived, we all would probably have been on our way home by now, which would have been a shame. Instead, we got out a few camp chairs and spent the next hour and a half sharing stories about Peter. He had been, in turns, brave, generous, unforgiving, adventurous, a wonderful father, loving husband, sadly desperate in the face of financial hardship, and a visionary. We all agreed that, if not for his desire to relive the Rough-Rider era of Teddy Roosevelt, most of us would never have been exposed to the stark beauty and history of eastern Nevada, which even now unfolded before us from our lofty vantage point.

I also learned a lot more about his children, especially Gus and Peter, whom I hadn't seen in years and who had inherited many of their father's best qualities. We threw rocks at tin cans and wandered about looking for arrowheads - something I used to love to do at the XJ Ranch. Miraculously, I found a Clovis point that I decided to dedicate to Peter's grave. By the time the hole was finished, we were no longer strangers at a funeral.

The short walk to the gravesite brought new emotions. Kathy and Courtney, Peter's only daughter, were both wary of the finality of the occasion, even though he was truly dead and gone. The simple pine casket (remarkably close to the plain wooden box he had requested) was beside the grave, and four of us took hold of the two straps and lowered it down. Then, since there was no minister, we all said our personal farewells to Peter. Bob put a coffee can from the family roasting business into the grave, and others simply spoke their piece. When my turn came, I thanked Peter for his hospitality at the XJ and tossed my arrowhead atop the coffin.

When all had been said, we took turns tossing a bit of earth into the grave and that was when Courtney lost it. As long as her father's body had been nearby in the hearse, she had been okay, but the finality of his actually being put in the ground had been too much. Fortunately, she had her mother to console her, which had the added benefit of distracting Kathy from the moment as well.

Now that we had shared so much, everyone was reluctant to part. So we made our way back down to the Owl Club, where we had a late lunch/early dinner. Peter's mother had brought along scores of pictures of Peter and his family, and we passed those around the long table as we continued to reminisce. Most notable were the photos of Peter skiing with his children, playing with his dogs, fishing, or watching over his herd of bison at the XJ. Those smiling, confident images contrasted greatly with more recent ones, where he seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

In the end, that may be the greatest tragedy. Peter had felt his responsibility as family provider so keenly that it obscured the rest of his world: his family's unconditional love and the things in his life that he enjoyed so much. He saw no way out except at the end of a gun barrel. I can't imagine what he suffered, both mentally and physically, but it seemed such an unsatisfying end to an otherwise very satisfactory life.

But thank you, Peter, for being the kind of person who could inspire so many people to make the long journey to share a thoroughly remarkable afternoon on a remote hilltop in the shadow of the Diamond Mountains. You are missed.