TheBanyanTree: Red, White, and Blue

[Margaret R. Kramer]

My mom died 20 years ago, but I probably have been out to the cemetery fives
times total.  And that’s because my grandma wanted to go and put some
flowers on her grave and I drove her out there.

My mother died very suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 52.  Of
course, my parents hadn’t bought plots at that time, so after we looked at
various caskets and decided on a blue one, we went out to the cemetery so my
dad could buy a plot.

It was a surreal day.  My mother was gone in a poof, yet it seemed like she
was still there, and was only visiting someone and would be back any minute.
The casket, the obituary, and all the friends who kept coming to the house
were part of a long strange dream I couldn’t wake up from.

It was early fall, but warm and sunny as I remember it when my brother and
sister and I went with our dad to the cemetery.  It’s a relatively new
cemetery carved out of an old farm, but now in the heart of the suburbs.
All the stones are flat for easy mowing and we can’t have real flowers
there. There aren’t any romantic paths that wind through the graves.  All
the graves are lined up in rows on either side of a paved trail, kind of
like the old ramblers were lined up as they were being built in the 50s.

Dad bought three plots that day; two for him and Mom and one for Grandma.
He asked us what we thought about the view and we joked back, why would Mom
care?  I also asked him if he thought about remarrying, yes, the precocious
oldest child would ask that sort of question on the day her mother died, and
what would happen to the plot.  He brushed it off and went ahead and bought
the three plots.

Grandma joined Mom (her daughter) there in 2000.  Until my dad’s burial, I
had never seen Grandma’s stone, and almost broke down when I did.  My uncle
had talked about planting a tree at Grandma’s grave (which is allowed) and
there it was, small, but growing.

I noticed many of the graves had flowers, fake flowers by their flat stones.
Most of the residents’ stones came with vases that can be stored in the
stone and pulled out easily for flower arrangements.  Some of the trees had
small wind chimes and other decorations in them.

My dad and Grandma had kept up with flowers for Mom until my dad remarried.
My stepmother’s first husband is buried in the same cemetery, but closer to
the main road, so after my dad and she were married, they came fairly
regularly and put flowers on both graves.

But time passes, priorities change, and all the graves became bare and
forgotten.  I, personally, felt a person’s spirit and memories lived in my
heart and not in the cold, dank earth.  Why did I need to visit them at the
cemetery?  I already had them tucked away inside of me.

I looked at my parents’ and Grandma’s graves and they were so bare and
forlorn.

My dad’s birthday was the 4th of July and he was one of those people who
felt their birthdays should be national holidays and it was for him!  He
said his mother could hear the firecrackers popping as she was giving birth.

As I was growing up, one of my mom’s closest friends and her family (with
eight children) came and we picnicked the day away.  We played croquet on
the front lawn, went swimming in the pool, and waited anxiously for it to
get dark so we could run around with sparklers and watch my dad’s fireworks
show.  The 4th was always a magical day, just as cool for me as Christmas.

On the Saturday after Dad’s burial, I went to a craft store, and stood in
front of hundreds of fake flower bins trying to decide what to buy.  Then it
hit me.  The 4th of July!  I picked out red, white, and blue flowers, found
a little sparkly thing with red, white, and blue streamers, and grabbed a
small American flag.  Grandma always loved and grew roses, so I gathered a
bunch of roses for her.  I also bought an American flag wind chime to hang
in the tree.

It was a perfect early summer day.  The sun was dancing in a blue sky, there
was little wind, and it wasn’t humid.  Ray and I drove to the cemetery and
found the bare graves.  We pulled out the vases, cut the long stems of the
fake flowers with a wire cutters we brought along, and created artistic
arrangements.

We sat on the ground and let the sun soak into our bones while we talked.
It was kind of like we were having a conversation with all of them; Grandma
with her cup of decaf coffee, and Mom and Dad sipping  their pop.

I noticed people coming and going as we sat there.  It dawned on me some of
us do need a place to come and be with our loved ones.  We need something
more than what is in our hearts.  This cemetery was like a meeting place, a
gathering place for the living and the dead to exchange news, gossip, and
love.

It’s very unusual for me to want to go out to the cemetery.  I’m just not a
“cemetery person.”  Maybe I feel like this because our dad is back where he
belongs, with us, in his plot next to Mom and away from the “evil
 stepmother” (a long story in itself).  Maybe because after 20 years, all
the plots are filled, and the party is just beginning.

Ray and I gathered up the cut stems, waste paper, and bags.  A little breeze
blew up and I could the tinkling of wind chimes as I walked towards the car.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

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Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two
most beautiful words in the English language.
~Henry James