Visiting the Relatives at the Cemetery

Mom and I went to the cemetery yesterday to "visit" my Dad and other relatives that are buried there. Since my Dad was a veteran, Mom always likes to ensure that Dad has some flowers and a flag on his grave marker prior to Memorial Day. I have never really seen the point of "visiting" someone's grave, but Mom wants to do this, so I take her when she wants to go. What's a couple of hours in the scheme of things, right?

At the best of times, visits to the cemetery revolve around "hunting" for the grave that you want to visit. Since we only visit a few times each year, we do not remember precisely where the grave is, but instead remember landmarks and look for the grave based on the landmarks.

My Mom knows where every relative’s grave is located in this cemetery. On our previous visit, she could tell me exactly which number lot and then point to whatever landmark anchored her memory. For instance, my Dad’s grave is located in Lot 63 and we remember where this is located because there is a gardener’s shed in the adjacent plot. Once we arrived at Lot 63, we look for a specific tree and a specific monument and my Dad’s grave is within the space between the two. Complicated, yes. But it has worked for Mom for many years. During our last visit, we located and visited the graves of all but 2 of our relatives buried there.

This year, the process was much more complicated and time consuming as Mom’s memory wasn’t quite what is was last time. I anticipated that we’d have some trouble finding graves this time, so I thought it would be a good idea to write down a more precise location of the graves so that I could easily locate them in the future.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the game of “treasure hunting” Mom and I played for a couple of hours at Resurrection Cemetery yesterday! It was quite entertaining. I’m sure that any observers would have laughed until their stomach’s ached as we went to certain lots and Mom would give me clues: “Tom and Helen’s grave is right around that monument… if we find Tommy and Jeanne’s grave, it’s just over there (pointing) from them. I remember walking just a little ways up and to the left from their grave.” Great clues, right? You just have to laugh.

So, I got a good start on my suntan and even got a bit of exercise during our 2 hour visit. And I took really good notes so that I could find the graves myself as Mom’s memory/clues don’t make it easy to find what she’s looking for any longer. It’s just another thing to do to preserve the family history. ;-)