Grieving Parent

Category: Graveyard Gardens

  • Tree Thieves Strike

    Tree Thieves Strike

    Christmas was always a big deal to Richard. So we put out a Christmas tree at his grave and one at my mom’s grave which is located right behind Richard’s. We used live trees, intending to plant them somewhere later.

    They were in pots. We just dug into the ground and buried them up to the rim of the pot.

    I made a trip to the cemetery today. Where once there were Christmas trees there are now holes in the ground. The picture above is where our tree once stood.

    Our cemetery has a rule against artificial decorations. They allow an exception during the Christmas season. During Christmas we are allowed to place wreathes and other artificial decorations. At the end of January the artificial decorations must be removed.

    I never thought a real live tree would fall under this rule.

    But it seems my definition of artificial is much different than the staff of the cemetery.

    Very aggravating.

  • Christmas Decorating at the Cemetery

    Sunday afternoon we did a little Christmas decorating at the cemetery.

    There have already been many wreaths showing up. Debbie decided she wanted Richards grave to look different. So she bought a couple of small live trees. She put in a few ornaments and red bows.

    Richard always insisted on cranberry sauce for Christmas. Not the store bought kind, that stuff that looks like it came out of a tin can jello mold. Nope. It had to be the real thing.

    So every year Debbie bought cranberries and cooked them on the stove with sugar. This was a time consuming job requiring lots of stirring. Richard helped. Some.

    So Debbie got cranberries and made strings of berries with them. We placed them on the trees.

    We took these potted trees to the cemetery. I dug them in deep enough the wind shouldn’t be able to turn them over. We put one at Richard’s grave and one at my mom’s grave, which is located behind Richard.

    After Christmas we’ll take them out and plant them somewhere.

  • Trouble at the Cemetery

    Trouble at the Cemetery

    Got a call last week from Mark at the cemetery.

    “Someone put up a rock border around your son’s headstone.”

    Well, yeah. Debbie and I spent an entire Sunday afternoon putting that there. We wanted to get it looking nice for Richard’s birthday.

    It was hard work. The sod in that area of the cemetery has a tough root system. It didn’t come up easily. The ground was like concrete. We dug some of it out and added nice planting soil we got from Lowe’s.

    Well, it seems rock and stone edging is against the rules. Liability issues.

    So, this past weekend we went back and removed the edging stones.

    For now we didn’t put in a new edging. Only wood and plastic are allowed. Didn’t see any that are pleasing to us. We added a few more flowers too.

    Richard's grave with the dangerous edging removed.
    Richard’s grave with the dangerous edging removed.