Memorial Day

Yesterday I took a quiet walk through our local cemetery. It seemed strange to read the names of so many people that I do not know. I had a sweet conversation with a man whose wife had recently died after 69 years of marriage. He was planting a little hibiscus tree near his wife's headstone.

My brother, Charles, died when I was five years old. As far back as I can remember, Memorial Day always meant a trip to the cemetery. We called it Decoration Day, and mother always prepared containers of beautiful fresh cut flowers for Charles' grave. The neighboring plot belonged to a child. The grave was never visited that day and we could only assume that the family had moved away leaving the tiny grave behind. My sister and I would take a soup can, cover it with tin foil and fill it with pansies, grape hyacinths, or other small flowers from mother's garden. We carried this bouquet just as proudly as mother carried her large arrangements of iris and tulips. Ever so gently and lovingly we placed our tiny arrangement on the little headstone, carefully anchoring it with stones against the wind. I wonder if that little grave is still there. I wonder how that child's mother felt on Memorial Day. Was her heart heavy with sorrow to think that no one would visit that little grave that day. How could she ever have known that two little girls were following their mother as she trimmed the grass around the stone, carefully washed it with water, and then decorating it with beautiful little flowers that a child would have loved.