Twice a year, on their respective anniversaries, I make a
pilgrimage up to the cemetery to pay my respects to Mom and Dad.

Neither of them are too vocal any more. But I nevertheless usually
sit there by the graveside for a while and have a chat, talking to
them about... well... whatever happens to be most current.

What I most remember from this place, this cemetery, is how young
we all were when Mom died in April 1970, (I was 11 at the time
and the oldest of four children) and how on each Sunday, right
after church, Dad would pile us into the car to drive here, and
we'd all pile out to say a prayer for Mom. Although in retrospect,
considering it now from a father's perspective, perhaps it was
equally a prayer for ourselves.

Hardly the stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting: a widower and his
four relatively young children praying over mother's grave.
But that was then, and this is now. The memory is still fresh,
but time has well helped diminish any lingering grieving pain.

Still, even decades later, this trip to the cemetery is a practice
I continue at least twice a year, if for no other reason than to
pay my respects and to once again talk to Mom and Dad about
whatever seems most current.

C J