Cemetery Blues

Bought lovely bouquet of flowers and choc chip muffins, headed for the cemetery to dance in remembrance of Dad and Mom's anniversaries. Felt kinda dreary as the weather was too chilly for my hopes of sitting on the ground and having that muffin-eating picnic. I even took one of my precious agates from Oregon mailed to me by Holly Jo--to slip in the vase of flowers to commemorate the birthplace of my father. We looked in the trunk for something to sit on but nothing was there. I said, oh, it's OK. We'll just stand and dance and eat our muffins. Took a big jug of water for the flowers. We got closer and closer and saw many fresh graves, one of which was right smack above my parents' headstone. The huge piled up mud was covering 85 percent of their marker about 4" thick. I had hoped for a happy moment but then Jeff cut himself trying to clear all the mud off their names and when I saw blood mixed with the mud I just started to cry and said I just wanted to leave. We shoved the flowers in the vase which didn't look too attractive in all that muddy mess and I was certain when the workers came to finish their job for the people whose feet lie just above my parents' heads, that the flowers would be ruined and cast aside anyway. We left with me bawling my eyes out and I asked Jeff to drive up to the office where I hurriedly went inside and told "Big Steve" (yes, it was on his business card) that it was my parents' 65th anniv and that they had both been buried on their anniversary and that of all the days to see their gravesites like that, it wasn't great timing on their part. I told him I understood that they had lots of fresh graves out there, it was plain to see, but that at any time someone's loved one could appear and that it would be respectful if they'd be more inclined to not dump someone else's grave dirt on top of what one comes to "look at". He complained about how the door was supposed to have been locked, that he'd had 4 phone calls after closing time and he'd probably be there another hour and was trying to get home. He filled out a work order and gave me his apologies and his card (please, Big Steve, don't call me or send me any propaganda on buying my own fucking grave shit--I ain't going that route!) and we went home and ate our muffins. Later on we went to the Salv Army and I found some really fun things and due to spinning the big "wheel" at arriving at "43", I got 43% off all those things that weren't 1/2 off anyway. Folks were married in 1943--that was the first thing I thought: "I knew you'd want me to be happy, Mom and Dad, and I know you would've felt bad for my good intentions to have been thwarted." And on the way home, it was so sweet watching Jeff briskly walking in the dark to retrieve the bouquet of flowers so that I could take them home, arrange them in my parents' Silver Anniv vase they had from in 1968 and know they'd want us to have them here. "No entry after dusk" my ass, Big Steve! I know to be Herenow is what's real and I won't dwell on my sad little picnic, but turn it into a celebration of my life here with Jeffrey, in the home begun by Jo and Dana 60 yrs ago ... and we shall carry it on and be joyful. When my time comes, I shall be pulverized and burnt and perhaps blown away like wisps in the wind ... I've had enough mud for one lifetime. Dust in the wind, Baby! Happy Trails, my beautiful family xoxoxo ... and to my wonderful husband: "You made this day beautiful for me and I thank you. I am blessed." XO