When we were children we would drive from cemetery to cemetery placing flowers on the graves of our family members.  While we were there, we would water all the flowers placed at other graves – running back and forth from water spicket to stone marker, making sure everyone’s flowers looked pretty for the Memorial Day weekend.

After not having participated in this ritual for several years, three years ago I began accompanying my parents on their annual outing when my father expressed worry that after him, no one would take care of this important task.  When I told him I would – he laughed.  I wouldn’t know where everyone is.  Turns out – I do.

The neighborhood I grew up in is flanked by cemeteries.  As kids to go anywhere you walked through cemeteries.  We always stopped and visited family plots on our way through.  Sometimes I would take my paper and pencil and sit on a quiet hill in the cemetery and draw.  I always found cemeteries peaceful, beautiful places.

Also as a kid, my neighborhood became a flower garden on Memorial Day weekend as all the florists’s stalls lined the main street and what seemed like hundreds of cars entered and exited the main gates.  The family flower shops are long gone and the number of cars has dwindled but the ritual is still carried on by many families.

They come together to plant or place flowers, hauling out of trunks huge buckets of water and piles of garden tools.  They spend the morning working and talking, smiling and laughing.  They are remembering.

For those of us raised in this tradition, it is not only a duty but a joy.  A way to show the world that these people were loved in life and missed in death.  The tokens we bring and leave there celebrate the individual lives represented by the cold stone markers.  Our joy at having loved them is evident.

For a moment, I thought of how this annual experience mirrors another tradition in many families – decorating the Christmas tree.  That too is a joyous time when we come together and by using little brightly colored objects, we celebrate the lives of those we miss.  We place the ornaments on the tree like we place the flowers on the graves – it is a remembering of the joy they brought to our lives and an honoring of their  time in the world.