I am currently in my annual May unsettlement. Starting around the last week in April every year I begin to ruminate on when I am going to make my annual pilgrimage to my mom's grave. I hate going. May is the month because I have three target dates - her death date, Mother's Day and Memorial Day. Her death date is movable, so it's rarely the day unless it falls on a weekend, but I can always count on Mother's Day and Memorial Day to stick in my craw. It's not fair to my family, I tell myself. Mother's Day should be YHWH's day and I should spend Memorial Day with friends and family. And this year gas is so expensive. And of course, what really nags at me is the knowledge that if her grave were in town, I'd probably go all the time; weekly or at least monthly. I'd bring seasonal flowers, leave some birthday cake, have a picnic once in awhile.
I realize that it sounds crass and heartless to look at it as a chore, but frankly, I have simply never seen the point in visiting someone's grave. Her grave is in a rural area and it takes two hours to drive out there and when I get there I'm like Clark Griswold taking in the Grand Canyon. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I never cry. No way am I going to carry on a conversation. I lay down some flowers, pick a couple of weeds, kick some dirt, and sit on the nice granite bench my dad made. That takes about five minutes. "Now what?" I ask myself. I'm a doer. I can't just sit. In the evenings, I may sit down to watch a baseball game, but I'm doing laundry and knitting or doing a crossword at the same time. In church or class where I have to sit still and be quiet I have to furtively make lists or draw maps or I won't make it.
This year I had my date all marked out. It was going to be last weekend. We were going to take the Super Giant Killer to the Okeene Rattlesnake Roundup (her snake fascination is a whole 'nother post) and then swing over to the cemetery a couple counties away while we were out there. Then the Thursday before that weekend YHWH announces we're going to see her family that weekend on the other side of the state. I was going to protest and even thought about whining and making a big issue out of it, but then I realized, who was I fooling? I didn't even want to go out to the cemetery.
As it happened, though, I started talking to Family Chronicler, a co-worker, about it and she didn't think I was all that bad for feeling that way. She even had some ideas of things Killer and I could do to commemorate. One thing was to have Killer write a letter to Grammy and affix to a ballon and let float up, up, and away. Another one was to find an old grave around here that doesn't seem to have anyone taking care of it and adopt it; kind of a goes-around-comes-around sort of thing. Or on her death date we can tell stories and look at photos so SGK doesn't forget what she doesn't remember (mom died a month after the Killer was born). I'm a doer, right? I can do that. I'm not sure if it will hapen, though. When I brought it up with SGK she said, "Maybe later, dad." Crap, she's already a teen.
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3 comments:
I've been having some of the same thoughts. What to do. What to do.
my father died 11 years ago, is buried in Enid, and I rarely go. To me, that's not daddy, he's in my memories. But I agree, it's a dilemna.
This is why I want to be cremated. Scatter my ashes in the wind, and then I'm everywhere. No need to tend a grave. Dust in the wind.
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