Grave Concerns
Mother’s Day is a little different when you have a dead parent.
(“It’s not dead, it’s sleeping.”
I said “dead parent”, not “dead parrot” Monty Python-quoting voice in my head!)
The upside is you don’t ever have to worry about a gift. No crowded stores or obscene shipping charges from a website to get the gift there on time or packed restaurants with crappy fixed price menus and servers who are pissed off because other than Valentine’s Day Mother’s Day is the ultimate amateur hour for restaurant eating and the amateurs don’t tip. Nope, you don’t have to worry about any of that, not even a phone call.
If you’re like me and you have a small garden plot on your parents’ grave however, well, you have a whole ‘nother set of worries. You know all those people who made restaurants amateur hour on Mother’s Day? You know what happens when their mother kicks off? That’s right; all those people flock to the cemetery where ol’ mom’s mortal husk is interred.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing. I visit the cemetery pretty regularly myself. As I said we keep a small garden plot for my folks and another for my grandmother. I’m there once a weekend or every other weekend or so to weed, water, and bring the Mrs. to do the actual seasonal planting since she’s the gardener in the family.
It’s the Mother’s Day-Father’s Day-Christmas Day-Easter only types that drive me up a wall. And believe you me, there are hundreds of them. That’s why I stay away on those days now. I go on the Saturdays of the parent-related holiday weekend and I go on Christmas Eve or on Boxing Day depending on when I’m off from work. Easter doesn’t matter because when I was a kid we always went away for that holiday and I continue that tradition.
The years since my parents shuffled (or in my father’s case hopped) off this mortal coil have taught me to stay away on the aforementioned holidays. When I go to the cemetery I like to have a little quiet time, do a little plot maintenance and generally be peaceful. The graveyard that holds my parents’ remains is, as you can see here, a beautiful park that just happens to have dead bodies buried in it. But hey, at least you know the bodies are there unlike say, some places in New Jersey.
So what’s so bad about going on the holidays? Well, first of all you have the people that ignore the fact that the roads in the cemetery are narrow and winding and have a 15 MPH speed limit, so Joey is in his Lincoln Navigator whipping through at 40 mph while dialing up his mother on the phone to tell her he’ll be there in 10 minutes and yeah he remembered put the flowers on grandma’s grave.
Should you make it to your loved ones’ final resting place without being killed yourself you have the clueless families to deal with. They’ll typically be wandering through with trays of pansies going “I think sheez ova heeuh. No wait, dere wuz a treeya yeaya, a treeya at the end of the row. Oh just call Teresa and ask!” And of course at this point the cell phone comes out and Cousin Teresa is called and she doesn’t know either and a conversation ensues that may in fact be loud enough to wake the dead though I haven’t seen direct physical evidence of that happening.
Yet.
On your way out you will probably get trapped behind a family vehicle of some type (mini van, SUV, something big) that has stopped in the middle of the one-way road that’s the only egress on that side of the place. One parent and their adorable offspring have hopped out to chase after the waterfowl who live in the pond because, you know, they’ve never seen a goddamned duck before and nothing fits the calm, reflective mood of the cemetery like a four year old shrieking after a terrified waterfowl as Dad takes 5 minutes to realize that the traffic is piling up behind his little family moment.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people should only visit the cemetery frequently or not at all. I’m just saying that people should remember where they are when they do go. Although I guess it is hard for people to acknowledge where they are, because then they would have to acknowledge that they’ll be there too, sooner than they think.
Oooh that’s dark eh? Ah well, guess that’s what happens when the coffee cup I get in the morning is a rerun. Same one I got last Tuesday in fact.
(“It’s not dead, it’s sleeping.”
I said “dead parent”, not “dead parrot” Monty Python-quoting voice in my head!)
The upside is you don’t ever have to worry about a gift. No crowded stores or obscene shipping charges from a website to get the gift there on time or packed restaurants with crappy fixed price menus and servers who are pissed off because other than Valentine’s Day Mother’s Day is the ultimate amateur hour for restaurant eating and the amateurs don’t tip. Nope, you don’t have to worry about any of that, not even a phone call.
If you’re like me and you have a small garden plot on your parents’ grave however, well, you have a whole ‘nother set of worries. You know all those people who made restaurants amateur hour on Mother’s Day? You know what happens when their mother kicks off? That’s right; all those people flock to the cemetery where ol’ mom’s mortal husk is interred.
What’s wrong with that? Nothing. I visit the cemetery pretty regularly myself. As I said we keep a small garden plot for my folks and another for my grandmother. I’m there once a weekend or every other weekend or so to weed, water, and bring the Mrs. to do the actual seasonal planting since she’s the gardener in the family.
It’s the Mother’s Day-Father’s Day-Christmas Day-Easter only types that drive me up a wall. And believe you me, there are hundreds of them. That’s why I stay away on those days now. I go on the Saturdays of the parent-related holiday weekend and I go on Christmas Eve or on Boxing Day depending on when I’m off from work. Easter doesn’t matter because when I was a kid we always went away for that holiday and I continue that tradition.
The years since my parents shuffled (or in my father’s case hopped) off this mortal coil have taught me to stay away on the aforementioned holidays. When I go to the cemetery I like to have a little quiet time, do a little plot maintenance and generally be peaceful. The graveyard that holds my parents’ remains is, as you can see here, a beautiful park that just happens to have dead bodies buried in it. But hey, at least you know the bodies are there unlike say, some places in New Jersey.
So what’s so bad about going on the holidays? Well, first of all you have the people that ignore the fact that the roads in the cemetery are narrow and winding and have a 15 MPH speed limit, so Joey is in his Lincoln Navigator whipping through at 40 mph while dialing up his mother on the phone to tell her he’ll be there in 10 minutes and yeah he remembered put the flowers on grandma’s grave.
Should you make it to your loved ones’ final resting place without being killed yourself you have the clueless families to deal with. They’ll typically be wandering through with trays of pansies going “I think sheez ova heeuh. No wait, dere wuz a treeya yeaya, a treeya at the end of the row. Oh just call Teresa and ask!” And of course at this point the cell phone comes out and Cousin Teresa is called and she doesn’t know either and a conversation ensues that may in fact be loud enough to wake the dead though I haven’t seen direct physical evidence of that happening.
Yet.
On your way out you will probably get trapped behind a family vehicle of some type (mini van, SUV, something big) that has stopped in the middle of the one-way road that’s the only egress on that side of the place. One parent and their adorable offspring have hopped out to chase after the waterfowl who live in the pond because, you know, they’ve never seen a goddamned duck before and nothing fits the calm, reflective mood of the cemetery like a four year old shrieking after a terrified waterfowl as Dad takes 5 minutes to realize that the traffic is piling up behind his little family moment.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people should only visit the cemetery frequently or not at all. I’m just saying that people should remember where they are when they do go. Although I guess it is hard for people to acknowledge where they are, because then they would have to acknowledge that they’ll be there too, sooner than they think.
Oooh that’s dark eh? Ah well, guess that’s what happens when the coffee cup I get in the morning is a rerun. Same one I got last Tuesday in fact.
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