Memories

This little stone is near my great-grandmother's grave at Oak Grove Cemetery in Bath, Maine.

In our family, especially when you live far from home, one of the rituals is to go to the cemeteries to water the flowers planted at the grave sites of our loved ones. This year was a little sad, as I recently lost my Dad and my Great Uncle Bud.

My father is buried at the Morningside Cemetery in Phippsburg, Maine. It is small, and the hill rolls down towards a salt water marsh. As I walked along the cemetery with my kids and my mom, we stopped and read the stones of strangers. Now and then, I'd recognize a family name, and Mom pointed out a few that she thought I would know. Mom, the ever-present gardener, bent to pinch off the dead blooms from the geraniums and impatients planted on my father's grave.

"I can't believe I am fixing the flowers on my ex-husband's grave.", she muttered to herself, making me laugh. Come to think of it, Dad would have thought that was pretty funny, too.

We all know that the person is not "there" at the cemetery. They are not "there" during the visiting hours or the funeral, either. But you have a comfort in visiting those places just the same.

We saw children's graves with little toys left by grieving grandparents and parents. A stone with a collection of seaglass and pretty shells and stones. Near the grave of a young man who just died last year, his pair of fishing boots and his clam hoe. No one had disturbed a thing, and the sun shone brightly on this little grassy knoll so full of the memories of so many families.

Walking through the cemetery, I thought... "I don't really feel Dad here." We got back into the van, and I drove to the Alliquippa, a tiny harbor where he used to moor his boat. The ropes are still strung to the old apple tree that he used to sit on an overturned 5 gallon bucket, drinking a beer after a day fishing. The rocks are steep and spikey with barnacles, and I climbed down them barefooted to search for pieces of seaglass that always collects at the base. Expensive "summer people's" sailboats went by, small yachts, and the dirtier, worn looking lobster boats of the locals. Dad used to wait patiently for me to find my sea glass treasures, and would call out to me, "did you find any blue ones?" It seemed strange to not have him there.

I looked out over the harbor, breathed in the salt air, and closed my eyes. I thought to myself, "This, this is where I will come for the rest of my life to really feel close to Dad."

He was a man that didn't make it much past the 8th grade, survived the Great Depression, and worked really hard to care for his family. He was quiet and had a hard time coming up with the words to tell you how he felt, but the pride he had for his children was strong. He once named a boat after me, the "Jana E.", and now as a woman nearing 40 I realize that may be the greatest way he had to tell me he loved me, the surprise baby they had when their older children were nearly all teenagers.

This morning I went to my old little childhood church. The minister gave a neat children's sermon; he showed the children some fossils, and told them what they were, and the age of the fossil. Then he asked them, "what kind of mark will you leave during the years God allows you to live?" I thought about that all day. As the little plaque on the cemetery stone says, "those who loved them know who is buried here"...whether there is a mark left behind or not.