Epilogue
The flat, grassy lands of Kansas in the summer time can be beautiful when the sun is shining. Or they can be hot, dry and unforgiving during a drought. They can smell fresh and sweet after a morning shower. Or they can be prone to flooding and insect swarms after a deluge of rain.
It was with these stark contrasts in mind that Jeff decided partly cloudy skies with the smell of rain on the way was perfect for the mid-June day he had to bury his mother next to his father. A day he'd known would come at some point in his life, but had always hoped in a deeply hidden childlike way he'd never see.
He looked at Tin-Tin, who was dabbing at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. Next to her stood her father, mostly recovered from his injuries save for the shorter haircut he'd opted for to remove the burnt edges. How close they'd come to losing the Kyranos last week. He couldn't fathom not having them on the island and was beyond relieved that they'd survived.
And the reason Kyrano had lived was the very same reason the entire population of the island stood here at the Valley Falls Cemetery just outside the tiny town of Valley Falls. Grant Tracy's grave was well looked-after and now next to it was an open rectangular hole in the ground with a beautiful cherry wood casket suspended atop it.
He sighed as his eyes moved to his eldest two. Scott and Ruth had borne the brunt of raising the younger boys in the years after Lucille's death. Virgil had always been Scott's support beam, never failing to hold him up when he might otherwise have crashed and burned.
Next to them John, standing with Brains by his side. One just as much a son as the other, Jeff thought with a small smile. He remembered having a talk with his mother about that once; about her thoughts on Jeff including Brains more in family activities and not just International Rescue ones. He also recalled the blank look Brains subsequently gave him when he asked if he'd like to try a couple sets of tennis.
Brains had whipped him but good, with Ruth Tracy cheering him on the whole way.
Gordon and Alan. Two peas in a pod. Alan had been newborn and Gordon just a year old when Lucille was taken from them. Ruth had nurtured both youngsters with as much zeal as she had her own son, and they were all the better for having learned from the tough farm wife they had all adored.
There were many others there too, mostly from the older generation that had known both his parents. The minister began reading verses from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Verses that had been made into a popular song generation after generation from the time Jeff was a small boy.
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven," the minister said.
Jeff's mind wandered. Yes, there truly was a season for everything. Grant and Ruth Tracy had started this legacy with a farm and a dream. Jeff had left that world to follow his own dream, his own purpose. And he and Lucille had created a family of incredible men who laid their lives on the line whenever people were in trouble.
It seemed suitable, then, that their grandmother's heart attack had come while she was saving a life.
In spite of the casket that lay there before them, and the typical funereal flower arrangements surrounding them, and the minister who was somberly closing his Bible and saying a final prayer for the soul of Ruth Tracy, Jeff smiled. She wouldn't have wanted to go any other way.
The End
Content Note: Thank you to Samantha Winchester for allowing my use of Valley Falls, Kansas as the Tracys' hometown, from her story Secrets and Lies.