At some point, the way some people visit family starts to look different. I was young—in my twenties—when my parents died within 18 months of each other and the shift started for me.
Not everyone gets it, but visiting the grave of someone who was once part of my life (or history, in the case of those I never met this side of heaven) is a way of honouring the person, the connection, and the place.
Place is important to me. Maybe more so having lost so many so early leaving place the only remaining tangible connection. Yesterday, Gerry and I drove southeast from Moose Jaw and visited places that mean a lot to me.
We also visited two cemeteries where I paid my respects those those I loved and who remained in my life the longest—and those I new only through stories.
After stopping and lingering at my family’s markers, we walked around, looking at old cracked and weathered gravestones, marvelling at the heartbreak of families who lost babies and young children year after year a century ago. Such tragedy would have broken most of us, yet they had no choice but to carry on.
In between cemetery visits, we stopped by the monstrosity that once was my grandma’s house. We talked to the young couple who live next door and learned about some of the nonsense that’s gone on there over the years with the house and inexplicable large and poorly built addition that’s been tacked on to the back.
Choosing to ask forgiveness rather than permission if confronted, I wandered around the yard pointing out the space where the old outhouse once stood and the rusty pole that was the start of Grandma’s clothesline where a rain gauge rested atop. I stood where those I love once stood, and remembered them.
It was a good day—a long day that was no good for pulling out the camera gear we had packed thanks to heavy smoke—and it will hold me for a time until I feel called to return.
In other news, I’m looking forward to tomorrow and a visit from living cousins I haven’t seen in decades!
Our little country cemetery in Pennsylvania goes back to the 1700s. When I visit my parents’ and brother’s graves, I also wander around to those who have been long forgotten. Many of those stones are crumbling and with no relatives to care for the plot, and the cemetery association strapped for money, the stones just deteriorate more from year to year. Being a memoirist, I would love to know their stories and be able to have their written legacy to show today’s people what strength and endurance these pioneers had to have. Thanks, Linda for your piece.
That’s a LOT of history, Judy! Like you, as a memoirist and storyteller, I long to know their stories.