Give Thanks...Honoring Family

 My wife and I stopped by the cemetery last week--we had some errands to run in our old home town. While I was at the cemetery, I picked up a couple of pieces broken off from my parents's headstone and took them home. My mom hated that headstone. She told us many times. When my father passed away in 1974, the city cemetery changed their rules...no raised headstones. There were hundreds of raised headstones in the cemetery going back to the mid-nineteenth century. Begrudgingly, my mom ordered the headstone and abided by the rules.

Then, the city changed the rules.

I don't know when, but at some point, the city changed its mind--raised headstones were now permitted in the cemetery. I believe my mom considered getting a new headstone and having it placed on their plots. 

Cancer claimed my father and a different cancer took my mother thirty-three years later. As she got sicker, and it became evident she would soon follow her late husband, we discussed getting a new headstone. With the sale of her home, we'd certainly have the means to do it. She considered it, but asked that we leave the original one. She thought it would be a waste of money. "Just leave the one we got," she said. 

So, we did. We left the one she picked out for our dad and they carved her name and date of passing next to his. It's been fifteen years the two have had their names together on a rock.

Turns out, my mom's getting a new headstone anyway.

We gathered as a family a few months ago on Memorial Day. A few weeks later my niece sent the family a picture of my parents's headstone. Something crushed it, splitting it down the middle...basically, destroying it. My brother called the city. They apologized and said they would take care of its restoration. My brother contacted the company that we used almost fifty years ago and they are making a new headstone using the original as the pattern.

I've always loved that cemetery. Even though we no longer live five minutes away, it's still hallowed ground. I'm grateful there's a place we can go to remember them, to honor them. I'm also grateful to the city for stepping up and fixing the issue. Sorry, mom...it's not what you wanted.

Then again, it sort of is.