Like most kids, I found the cemetery to be about the creepiest place around. I knew my stillborn sister and my grandparents were buried there, but the only grandparent I ever knew died before I turned 3, so I didn't really remember her. Even afer my Uncle Dale died when I was in 9th grade, the thought of stepping foot into a cemetery where all those dead people were was not high on my list of priorities. When I went to college in Winona, I remember a bunch of us piling into a car one night and driving through a cemetery just to try to scare ourselves. That cemetery probably would have been scary in broad daylight as the road wound around tight corners and was out in the middle of nowhere. Over the years I lost my fear of cemeteries, but still didn't feel a need to visit them. My mom and dad would always put flowers on the graves of their relatives on Memorial Day Weekend. I never really thought about it much. When they were unable to do that on their own, my sister Jo would help them. It never crossed my mind to go along.
And then my dad died. Once he was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery, the creepiness was gone for me. Suddenly, every time we went down to visit my mom, I would drive thru the cemetery and stop at my dad's grave. My mom liked to ride along. It was so nice that his grave was right next to the road running through the cemetery. That way, even though it was hard for my mom to get around, we could just stop the car, she could roll down the window and "visit" with him. That first Christmas after my dad died, my mom and Jo found a cute little Christmas tree to put on his grave. I found some solar lights that we strung on the tree too. The last few years of his life, my dad loved sitting and looking at the Christmas tree in their house. We just knew that he would have loved the little tree on his grave. So that Thanksgiving weekend, Mother, Jo and I took the tree to the cemetery. While my mom sat in the car watching, Jo and I almost froze our fingers off trying to wire that little tree onto a plant stand in such a way that the winter winds wouldn't blow it half way to Hokah. Thru trial and error and more laughs than we'd had in months, we got the tree secured. The two of us have put that little tree up 3 years in a row now. Each year we freeze and share laughs as we use yards and yards of wire to secure that tree. It's almost like spending time with Daddy (and now Mother too).
On Memorial Weekend the year after my dad died, I helped Jo and my mom put flowers on a bunch of relatives graves. This was one of the first times I really walked around much in the cemetery. I found it sweet that the graves of my dad's parents were just diagonal across the cemetery road from my dad. And Dale was close by too. My mom's parents were not buried next to each other. My Grandpa Miller didn't belong to a church, so he was buried in the city portion of the cemetery rather than in the church portion, where my Grandma Miller was buried a few years later. I still find that to be sad. I also saw where my dad's grandparents, William and Minnie Zibrowski were buried. They died several years before I was born. Minnie died first and William died only a couple days later. Everyone said it was of a broken heart. All of us siblings knew that if my mom would have gone first, my dad wouldn't have lasted any longer than William. In fact my dad had often said, that if my mom died first...and I quote...."they may as well dig my grave at the same time!"
Memorial Weekend of 2011, Jo and I put flowers on the graves again. This time Mother was in the nursing home. I took pictures of all the graves with the flowers and showed them to her. Little did we know that in less than a month she would be laid to rest there too. Later last summer when we were in Caledonia, Eric and I drove thru the cemetery. We stopped at their graves and I hopped out of the van and started pulling weeds from their plot. I could almost hear my mom saying, "You don't have to do that." Maybe she was just trying to get me out of there before I pulled that dandelion that was starting to sprout!
Now I actually find cemeteries to be comforting. I think of how many stories there must be with each person buried there. I think of families still mourning and mourn for those buried who have long been forgotten. When I go thru Evergreen Cemetery, I see names of people my parents talked about over the years. I find those taken far too soon: my mom's aunt, Rosina, who died in childhood and Shane, the teenage grandson of my dad's cousin who died in an atv accident on Memorial Day weekend in 2010. The last time I visited, I saw the grave of Bob Jacobson, a man who died only 2 months before my mom. Bob was so good to my parents and helped them in and out of church many times in their last years. And I even saw the grave of someone my parents mentioned whose name always made me laugh. I don't remember a thing they ever said about him other than his name, which cracked me up each time I heard it. I won't mention the name, just in case there is a relative of his reading this. You'll just have to walk the cemetery yourself and see if any names make you chuckle!
As I was writing this entry, my 10 year old daugher, Lauren (who has no idea that I'm writing a blog) walked in and asked me if I remembered the bird they buried months ago. Even though I didn't really remember, I said I did. She's a talker like my mom and she would have told me everything that happened the week before and after they buried the bird to try to get me to remember. So, I said yes that I remembered. She then went on to tell me that she put flowers on it's grave. I told her that was sweet and she said, "Well, actually they were dandelions!" She then asked if I'd looked at my front garden lately as it's blooming with tulips and daffodils. I told her yes and that she could pick some. She quickly ran outside and told me not to look when she came in. When we sat down for supper tonight, I found this sweet little bouquet just for me. 
No comments:
Post a Comment