From the beginning of my memory in the world, I have loved and lived with my Aunt Connie through a poem she wrote shortly after my birth — shortly before she passed away. Its thin metal frame is simple, looks like it could be bent easily but remains intact, and houses the small collection of lines that represent our brief interaction in this lifetime. One that was kind, and genuine, and too short. She left a husband and two young boys, four brothers and two parents. Their missing of her was a presence at holidays and those that marked her life and death.
Connie and her future husband Lane, circa 1971, in Bellingham Washington where they got their teaching degrees.
Connie and her sons Ben (Left) and Matt, in the mid-80s.
I've long felt a sort of draw to her, beyond the mere fact that we are blood related, that my father was her brother. And I've wondered, do I feel and seek a connection to her memory for a reason more complex than that? Or is it just my sentimentality, my sadness at never having known her and the mystery and heartache that surrounds her absence in our lives. But I know things about her that tell me, we would have understood one another. She was a writer. She was bitingly funny. She was loving and independent. What would our family look like had she been present to influence us? And is it unfair for me to even ask that question?
Top Row Left to Right: Mike Heimbuch (My dad) Uncle Karl, Uncle Paul, Uncle Doug
Bottom Row Left to Right: Grandma Bonnie, Grandpa Floyd, Aunt Connie
So as I pursue this somewhat vague endeavor to be a writer, I thought I should take advantage of my masters residency being in Washington and take a trip north to see her family — our family —her husband Lane and son Matt. To make better connections where I've long felt there needed to be. To better understand the people and the women with whom I share molecular chemistry.
The trip was short but wonderful. I heard stories that were new to me, and got a small glimpse into the life of a woman I wish I knew, from a man that did. Lane has also recently started gathering ancestral information on his and Connie's family, looking back through our heritage at names and places and marriages and all the many papered decisions that come with a life. I learned that she was writing two books before she died — one about the families, ours included, that came to Alaska to fish in her parents and her generation, some of the first of European decent to do so. The similarity to my own writing goals is a little startling, as I try to put on paper my experiences on a family commercial fishing boat. The opportunity to look farther back, to the fish camp my father and Connie grew up working and the homestead in Willow, has me nervous and intrigued at the same time. Would it be too much? To take on the stories of others, of people I've always struggled to ask personal questions of? Or would it be the best way, the only way to make the work and worry worth it. To tell a story that is mine and not mine, that is Alaskan and human and simple and intricate. At this point I don't know what the right direction is. But I think I will soon.
All of these things do not in themselves give me an understanding of Connie, but the desire and direction with which to ask questions. About her, about myself, about what I am driven to write and why, about the extended family I wish I understood better. And until I do find answers to those questions, if I ever do, I enjoy wondering about her. I enjoy wrapping my head around the person I imagine her to be, surely different from her actuality, but something she left for us nonetheless. A version of the woman made up of remembered stories and pictures and notebooks and cassette tapes and the weathered love of those who still miss her so dearly I can hear it in the shapes of the letters of her name when it leaves their mouths. Connie.
Location: Arlington Washington
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