My image of dad changed over time. I clearly remember my dad being able to answer any question, lift any weight and protect me from any and all monsters.
Then in time my vision of dad dimmed..... my dad usually picked the safe route, took very few chances and more than once told me that he would prefer I be a live coward and not a dead hero. That wasn't the life I wanted, I wanted to push the envelope...... all these years later when I work in dangerous situations, I like it. Heck, maybe I love it...... when I can use my left elbow to bump my 40 and instantly feel secure and prepared to deal with any situation that might go South....
My dad was a World War II veteran..... he lost friends. He knew what it meant to be a dead hero, and he didn't want that for me......
My dad was a better man than me, in so many ways. Not the least of which was Memorial Day. I grew up in a home which Memorial Day was a day that meant a lot! Memorial Day was not a Monday celebration, but one in which plans were made Friday, and fully engulfed Saturday and Sunday.
Some years we bought flowers Friday night, but more often than not we purchased picnic supplies to feed the family Saturday and Sunday. Saturday morning with the decorations secured we would begin the annual trip decorating graves.
My dad spent his early adult life living in rural Bloomfield, as a result many of his mentors and friends were buried in the area. The Union Grove Baptist Church was his home for a couple of decades..... the most important of grave sites belong to Naomi Hobbs, my nanny when I was young.
We would then stop at Morgan's graveyard to decorate a few family members..... My grandparents were born in the 1880's so we were showing respect for 90+ years of those that went before us......
Graveyards from Berrong to all parts of Bollinger County took the rest of the day, and often Sunday afternoon too. Dad would always pause at the grave of his little brother, Ivan. Dad felt a special connection to him......
Dad felt the dead deserved to me remembered and respected..... that explains the last stop we made every year, the grave of Lela Jones (my dad's first wife). I know my dad is a better man than me..... I don't see myself decorating the grave of an ex......
Dad got married when he was 22 years old, that marriage lasted for 22 years.....then one day dad came home from work, found divorce papers on the kitchen table and the phone ringing.......
When he got around to answering the phone, it was his sister.... She had found divorce papers on her kitchen table as well. Their spouses ran off together. The story takes a couple sad twist and turns from there......
The couple married, and their marriage lasted until her death in the early 1970's...... for some reason they were never buried together. My dad cared enough to decorate her grave every year until he died in 1997..... 35 years after she left him.
This Memorial Day two of my children will be meeting with college coaches, they have been offered scholarships to play at the next level. In a way we are celebrating the living.....and I am failing to live up to the example my dad set. Dad and his first wife never had children..... I wonder if anyone has decorated her grave since dad passed?
Love is a crazy thing.....think about all the tombstones we drive pass every single day.....and how many of them are never decorated. Will someone take the time and expense to show tribute to us...... does it matter, well it did to my dad.....
Are you going to visit anyone in the graveyard this weekend?
