My leukemia's back.

[getaclue]

Good morning Team Rachel.

 

[Blooie]

Good morning, Team! (afternoon?)

 

[N F C]

Good morning Team

Just wondering about something...When I was a little kid, Memorial Day was for fixing up the graves and putting new flowers out. Does anyone still do that? Seems like the people I hear talking about MD, look forward to it as a long weekend with time for camping, yard work, etc.

 

[getaclue]

NFC, I guess there are some old timers that still go visit, and take care of graves on Memorial Day, but I don't think the younger ones do. My grandmother was a member of the American Legion. The weekend before Memorial Day, they gave poppies for a donation. The two days prior to memorial day, they cleaned up, and put small flags on the graves of all those that had served, so they were all done, and looking good on Memorial Day. On Memorial Day, she dragged us to several cemeteries to put out fresh cut flowers on all family member's graves, and little flags on any family member's graves that served in the military, but didn't have one. When I got bigger, she used plastic flowers.

 

[ronott1]

At the cemetery here there will be flags put on the soldier graves and there will be services for them too.

My Dad uses to have us take flowers to the cemetery for relatives.

 

[Blooie]

Ken will be the featured speaker at this year's Memorial Day services. He will be at the Byron Cemetery first, then the Cowley one, then the Lovell one. Nice write-up in the paper Thursday too.

Our family does still do the Memorial Day grave visitations. Every year. Of course, Ken and I don't have any family out here, but we did when we lived back there. We'd form one heck of a caravan with all of us, too. Before Ma died, every year on the day before Memorial Day, Linda, Lori, Bev would go flower shopping and then go over to Ma's and plant her a lovely flower garden. She could tend one, she just couldn't do all the digging and planting. I joined in after we retired from the Navy. Ma was happy as long as there were Impatiens tucked in every available space between whatever else we selected. Linda's kids continued the tradition after Linda got sick. After Ma died we'd all go to the cemetery and put a big pot of Impatiens on her grave, which Lori would go pick up a few days later and plant at her house. Then after Dad died we added a flower pot of assorted flowers (he never really cared for flowers that much....called them the same thing he called us kids - "bloomin' idiots") and Bev would later take those home and plant. Then we'd hit the HyVee store for whatever we forgot, and one of us would host the family barbeque. I know that the Skybergs (Tammy's x-husband and his family) always drive the 120 miles to from Sioux Falls to Esterville Iowa and lay flowers on our grandson Austin's grave, one group for them and another on behalf of Tammy, Evan and the rest of us out here. So kind of them to think of us.

So yep, Debby...some of us do observe those somber traditions. We don't do it gladly, but we do it with heavy hearts. This year, since Linda has no grave, the fam is planning something on the first anniversary of her death. If you remember, she died just a few days after Memorial Day. I don't have all the details yet but I sure wish I'd be there with them....

 

[perchie.girl]

sooo may people move away from their center... grave yards may be across the country for many...

Mom and Grandma will be the last to be Buried ..... I want Cremation I think my son does too. Plant a tree to remember me...

deb

 

[lazy gardener]

did I tell you my dad was a Joker....
Back before locking gas caps my dad had this friend that bought a new car and was Regaliing everyone with its faboulous attributes.

So Dad hatched this plan... Hed meetup with his freind at the local bar and shoot the breeze. During a trip to the head he would slp outside and put a cuple of gallons of gas in his friends gas tank.... He was just careful enough to not make his friend suspicious. After the first week the friend came into the bar with a gas chart.... Wow he was getting thirty miles to the gallon.... He bought a round...

the next week dad converted to subtraction.... Oh my gawd his friend became more and more despondant.... then Dad and all his friends started laughing and toldhim what they had done.... so glad he was a good natured person. All they got was a few curse words and some accusaitions of their parentage...

deb

Deb, love that story!!!

Good morning Team

Just wondering about something...When I was a little kid, Memorial Day was for fixing up the graves and putting new flowers out. Does anyone still do that? Seems like the people I hear talking about MD, look forward to it as a long weekend with time for camping, yard work, etc.

It's still a tradition here. Memorial day parades followed by speeches at the cemeteries. My MIL makes a huge tradition of taking flowers to the graves of all her relatives. We owe so much gratitude to those soldiers who gave our lives to secure the freedoms that we are now squandering.

While I can appreciate that folks do this sort of thing: (grave visitation and decorating) I simply can't wrap my head around it. When I'm gone, stick my body or ashes in a hole. No fancy casket, no money spent on flowers that are pretty today, and become compost tomorrow. Even worse: silk or plastic flowers that become litter. No time wasted visiting the hole where my decomposing body lies. I will consider my life well spent if I leave behind a legacy that points those who knew me to my Jesus.

 

[Blooie]

Ma used to tell us all the time that if a single one of us ever put “Mom” spelled out in plastic flowers we’d have no earthly rest, ever! She’d be there to see to it!

 

[Alaskan]

I like going to the family grave sites. Most of the family had themselves carted back to the family plot. Which is nice, not too many cemeteries to visit.

And I like standing there, surrounded by the dead relatives. GiveS me a nice feeling of being connected and rooted.. even with my being blown all over tarnation.