Hillbilly Elegy

song “Tuesday’s Gone” was playing on
the radio. “But somehow I’ve got to
carry on / Tuesday’s gone with the
wind.” That was the moment it really hit
me that Papaw was never coming back.
The adults did what people do when a
loved one dies: They planned a funeral,
figured out how to pay for it, and hoped
that they did the deceased some justice.
We hosted a visitation in Middletown
that Thursday so all the locals could pay
their respects, then had a second
visitation in Jackson on Friday before a
Saturday funeral. Even in death, Papaw
had one foot in Ohio and another in the
holler.
Everyone I cared to see came to the