I stopped by the Pine Grove Cemetery this morning to leave a jar of rhododendrons for Mom and Dad. I walked around to see how other families decorated their grave sites. It's a waste to plant small flowers in the ground unless you return to water them. Although one grave had a cluster of beautiful Japanese iris, those thin ones. Some had small evergreen bushes planted. Both these looked nice.Dad was cremated and after some talk with Mom, we all decided to bury Dad with Mom in her coffin. A coffin and grave plot was Mom's choice of burial. This seems appropriate to me as Mom spent years tracing both her ancestors and Dad's and part of that is looking at grave stones for the dates and information. Now, their presence on earth is marked. Also it is nice for me to have a place to go to and visit.
When my friend Richard died (we had lived together for 6 years) he was cremated and his ashes scattered in his fiance's yard. So of course, I couldn't go visit his grave. Which I would have done had he had one.
When my dear friend and almost second husband Mort, the Bard of Kent, Ohio, died he was buried in his hometown of Alliance Ohio next to his Mom and Dad. In fact, maybe it's an Ohio thing but his parents had bought a grave plot for him. All ready and waiting. I have another friend from the same town whose parents did the same thing for her.
My ex-husband was cremated and my son still hasn't figured out a way to scatter his ashes in the Connecticut river so they sit in son's apartment. He feels they would just blow away if we scattered them from a bridge. Then he thought about paddling into the river in a canoe to scatter them. I said I'd wait on the shore. I haven't been in a boat in years despite being a Cape Cod gal.
I guess we think about these sort of things on Memorial Day.
Namaste, Suki
