Uncle George’s Legacy

We walked down a well-marked path toward a sandy wash in the Bisti/ De-Na-Zin Wilderness, but I couldn’t get the previous day’s images out of my mind.
We had stood in large, open-air building in the National Cemetery for Uncle George’s graveside services. Family members huddled close to keep warm.
In front of us, two Marines in full-dress uniforms stood in front of the casket, stretching a large American flag between them. One began carefully folding the flag.
The weather was cold, the hefty wind right off Santa Fe Baldy, and many people shook in the frigid air. Had Uncle George also shivered from cold when he’d left his assisted living home and wandered onto Puebloan lands, lost, without food and water for three days?
Over and over, the Marine folded the flag, checking the edges to make certain they lined up until he reached his partner. At that point, they tried to tuck the ends into the flag, failed, and knew it had to be redone.
As the Marine backed away, he unfolded the flag until it once again stretched between them. By that point, despite my gloves, my hands began to feel numb, but the Marine reverently went through the folding process until he reached his comrade who successfully tucked in the ends of the flag and handed it to a family member on the front row.
The two saluted the family and marched out of the building. This was the final goodbye to Ted’s Uncle George, and many of the family, even the little ones, cried as they filed by the casket to pay their last respects.
On the way home from Uncle George’s funeral in Albuquerque and his burial in the National Cemetery in Santa Fe, we stopped by the Bisti/ De-Na-Zin Wilderness to stretch our legs.
We’d visited the Bisti Badlands three times, coming in from the west entrance. This time we’d entered from the east, and since the wilderness covers 45,000 acres, we knew we’d see new territory, but I couldn’t help thinking about Uncle George as we walked down the trail.
George Greer Sloan died on March 15. He would have turned 100 in June. He and his siblings, including Ted’s mom, grew up in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
For 25 years, their mother, a registered nurse, acted as a midwife and physician in their small town and surrounding areas. The native people called her El Doctora and came to get her at all hours of the day and night to help with the birthing of babies.
She never charged for her services. She never refused to accompany the men who came to get her, usually with a horse or a donkey, even though she didn’t know where they were taking her. Sometimes she was gone for several days as she cared for the mother and newborn.
Her husband, like so many men of that era, sought work wherever he could find it, so he, too, was often away from home. Despite the hardships and hard work, their children loved life in Colonia Juarez. Ted’s mom, now 98, says her childhood was ideal, and George wrote that he was “nearly always deliriously happy.”
The desert trail Ted, Kenidee, and I followed provided a stark contrast to the lush Mexican river valley where the Sloan family lived.
When our trail entered the wide wash, we headed west down the arroyo into the badlands. After a mile or so, we struck out north and climbed a hill. Petrified logs lay everywhere, and it soon became apparent we were in the stone remnants of a great forest.
Ted measured one fallen giant by stepping off its length. It was at least 120 feet long, its root bulb laying exposed on the ridge, and its colors, red, orange, yellow, and gray, revealing the centuries-long process of minerals seeping into the wood and replacing the organic material.
As we continued exploring, we entered a vast area of hoodoos—hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. One large one looked like a friar or a saint. All other thoughts fled my mind except the beauty and eeriness of the landscape.
It wasn’t until an hour later when we started back to our vehicle and reentered the wash with its easy walking that I again thought about Uncle George. He was a praying man, even at age 13, when he became disoriented in a blizzard. He bowed his head and prayed, then dropped the reins and, trusting in divine guidance, gave the horse his head. Eventually, the horse took him to a camp full of people.
He prayed again in the Marine Corps during World War II while fighting in New Britain, Peleliu, and Okinawa, especially for his fellow soldiers, half of whom would not return home. He earned the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for bravery.
Did he pray at 99 years old when lost in the high desert country? Perhaps. Although he wasn’t a saint in the formal sense, he was close, and faith was the pattern of his life. Certainly, his children and grandchildren prayed. We all did. The Albuquerque police found him, and he rallied for a few days before slipping into the great beyond.
Even though I hadn’t known Uncle George well, his children’s stories about his prayers, faith, and courage enabled me to see the texture of his life. Those qualities, like the minerals which replaced the softer wood in the petrified log, would last forever as his legacy to all of us.

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