Remembering Dad

Last week was the 5^th anniversary of my dear dad’s death. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss him from the deepest part of my being.

Our house on the Eastern Shore is across the street from a cemetery.  Despite the expected jokes about the neighbors being quiet, it is a lovely location, sort of like having a park nearby. Perhaps this cemetery is special, being in a small, family-type town, but the thing that has most caught my attention is how people adorn the graves.

Especially now, in the Christmas season, there are hundreds of wreaths with red bows, fake poinsettias and all other sorts of decorations set out on the tombstones. Some of the wreaths are individualized with photos of the beloved or trinkets that give me a good idea of the deceased’s personality and interests.  For example, one extra-large wreath for a man who was clearly a hunter is laden with bird calls and empty cartridge shells, complete with red bow, of course.

Early on a cold morning last week while walking Prudy in the cemetery I passed a woman sitting in her SUV-she lowered the window, we exchanged pleasantries and then she said I’m just waiting for my daughter. From my front porch I watched the daughter arrive- she and her mother embraced and then took a beautiful garland of pine boughs and magnolia leaves out of the trunk and together laid it on a grave. Husband and father, I’m thinking.

I wish I could do that for my father, and in a way I guess I could. But as I live 1700 miles away from Lubbock TX I’d have to call a florist and arrange to have one delivered.  Yes, I could do that and I think next year I will.  But what I really want is to lay it down myself and tell Dad and the world that he’s not forgotten.  Despite the gaping hole his death has left in my life, his spirit lives on, within me.