Grieving Parent

Tag: Graveyard Gardens

Christmas Decorating at the Cemetery

This past weekend Debbie and I went to the cemetery with Christmas trees.

Once again we took small, real trees. We plan to take them and plant them somewhere later. Hopefully we’ll retrieve them before they disappear this time.

Richard’s 2010 Christmas tree.

Last year Debbie made strings of cranberries to put on the trees.

Richard liked cranberries. Not that Jello looking stuff you plop out of a can, but the real deal. He and Debbie would cook up real cranberries in our big cast iron skillet. When he was young he liked to help stir the sugary berry mix and watch the cranberries pop. I think he was the only member of the family that really cared much for them – though the real thing was much better than the canned version. We had cranberries every Christmas because Richard wanted them.

Debbie also thought the birds would like the fresh berries.

Well the birds didn’t pay much attention to them, and Richard didn’t reach out and pluck any of them off the tree either. So this year she decided it wasn’t worth the work. She bought some strings of red beads and put them on the trees. There are also some small balls and ribbons.

While we were there, we met another set of grieving parents, the Longs. Their son Michael Todd Long is one of Richard’s neighbors now. He died at the age of 15. That was about 13 years ago. They were there to decorate their son’s headstone.

The Long’s decorate the top of their son’s stone.

Like us, they have parents buried close by and will join their son there some day. She told me she wasn’t in any hurry to die, but she wasn’t afraid of it either, because she knew she’d get to she her son again when it happens.

Exactly.

12/15/2010
Silence of the Birds

It’s Halloween. Richard always had a good time with Halloween.

So after church this morning we stopped in Kroger and got a couple of helium filled Mylar Halloween balloons to take to the cemetery.

It was a beautiful morning, perfectly clear sky and crisp but not too cool air.

A hundred feet or so from Richard’s grave is a small grove of trees. There are a couple of real tall trees there. As we left our car and started walking to Richard’s grave we were greeted with birds chirping. It sounded like hundreds of them, coming from those trees. Reminded me of the old Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds. They were just chattering up a storm.

So we were standing there holding our balloons and talking to Richard. The birds were making a racket. We couldn’t see them, but it sounded like those trees were filled with them.

Finally we told Richard happy Halloween and Debbie and I released our balloons into the air, hoping maybe they would sail up to him in heaven.

As our fingers pulled away from the strings and the balloons started to rise into the sky – the cemetery went silent. Not a tweet. It was like the birds just vanished.

We watched the balloons rise higher and higher, until they vanished into the sun filled sky.

And the birds were still silent.

We stayed a little while longer, talking to Richard more. And the birds never made another sound. It was still quiet when we left.

That was really kind of weird.

10/31/2010
Another Birthday

Today is Richard’s birthday. He would be/is 24 today.

This one has been harder than the last. Last year his birthday was just 3 months from his death. In fact, we had just gotten his death certificate a couple of weeks before that. We were still numb. The Novocain of early grief has worn off.

Richard was the special intention for the 8am mass at church. Debbie doesn’t remember if she set that up or if someone else did, but like all the other “Richard Masses” we went to this one.

We then went to the cemetery.

I was planning to do some sprucing up around his grave. Recut the edges and put down new mulch. But there has been very little rain over the last several weeks. The ground was like concrete. I couldn’t get the edger tool more than an inch or so into the ground. So I decided to wait till later – like this fall – when the ground is a bit softer. I put the mulch around my mom’s stone instead.

We put some balloons by Richard’s grave and watered the flowers that were sagging pretty badly.

A couple of guys at work share Richard’s birthdate. So I had a birthday cake made with their names on it. I’m taking birthday cake and ice cream with a bunch of toppings to work today. The guys at work might think it’s a celebration for them. One of them is my boss, so I’ll probably be accused of sucking up to the man.

That’s OK. Richard will know who that cake and ice cream are really for.

Happy Birthday kid – I miss you.

08/31/2010
Spring In The Cemetery

Though it often hasn’t felt possible after Richard’s death, life does indeed go on.

Spring is when nature shows us there is hope. There is new life.

I took my camera to the cemetery this morning. Even in a place that is the focus of our pain there is also much beauty.

Hope you enjoy the pictures (click the thumbnail pictures below to see the full size image).

04/23/2010
Life Returns to the Cemetery

I guess it’s true that life goes on.

This winter has been long and cold. Really it has been cold since Richard died. I don’t remember a summer as cool as the past summer was. The grass stayed green the entire time.

And the winter bleakness has lasted very long.

But it seems life is returning.

The pansies we put at Richard’s grave last fall are blooming.

And popping up out of the hole in the ground in front of my mom’s tombstone are crocus. Their yellow blooms promise better things ahead.

We can only hope that life will return to our hearts too.

Crocus blooms pop up from the hole where one of our live Christmas trees used to be.

03/12/2010