For three days during a humid stretch of July in Newton, North Carolina, cars lined up along the dirt road outside the home of Deloy and Kate Oberlin.
Musicians and farmers and doctors came, and friends and family and neighbors. They showed up with their hands full. They carried homemade chicken potpie and sweet potato casserole and tamales and apple cake. They carried fiddles and banjos, a bass, a dulcimer, and a six-string guitar. They brought girls in fancy dresses and a boy holding a fidget spinner. They walked in the door and admired the family pictures along the hall, and hugged Deloy, and asked how he was doing.
"Come visit Kate," he'd tell them.
Kate was in the living room, wearing a red sleeveless blouse, a long green skirt, sandals, and a sun hat she liked to wear when she gardened. She was lying down. She wore no makeup, save for a little tinted lip balm. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to have the slightest smile.
The moment guests saw her, they stopped and did that thing we do in the presence of the dead: They stood at a distance, hands clasped, voices in a whisper, somewhere between reverence and fear.
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