In Memoriam

Another rainy Memorial weekend, there’s no promise of the sun. I’m sorry for the folks who’d planned a little camping fun. But my task will go forward with umbrella and raincoat. I’ll get those graves all covered, if I have to use a boat. The first one was for my daddy, back in nineteen fifty three. I could not know how many more family graves I’d live to see. The next one’s for my young husband. It was dug in sixty two. In seventy five my darling mother died and her grave was brand-new. Tears for a granddaughter in seventy nine and for a nephew that year too. In the year of nineteen eighty my brother followed those two. Then we had a short hiatus. It was not ‘til ninety-four that another brother was laid there. Then we counted one grave more. The next year we gathered once again, when my second husband died. He missed the sorrow of ninety-seven, when it was for his son we cried. Two more years in nineteen ninety nine my own son was laid to rest.. “If God is trying me”, I thought, “I fear I’ll fail this test.” Then He had pity on us and it was a full decade before another grave and in it my great grandson was laid. Two brothers lie in other grave-yards, and their stones I do not see. I’ve been going to this cemetery each Memorial week since fifty-three. There are many friends and in-laws that I must also remember. I go the rounds with flowers in May and with wreaths in cold December. This poem covers five generations of at least one family member who has gone on ahead of us and we bring flowers to remember. By: Joyce 5/28/ 11