Cemetery Flowers

Cemeteries may be left to genre films and gothic novels if the trend toward cremations and the sprinkling of ashes prevails.



Heart-shaped marker for
"Dream Baby" Jesse Jr.

 We spent the Sunday of Memorial Weekend celebrating with a large gathering of living family, and Memorial Day with the dead.  Jesse bought a dozen red roses, and we decorated Jesse's wife Amelia, their son Jesse Jr., his mother and father and aunt and uncle, all buried in or near Longmont. His parents' grave already had flowers and little bunny rabbits on it--we think sister Lola and grandchildren were there before us.

We talked about what to do with my father's ashes, which currently reside in a box under the sofa.  Wes's ashes are in Ft. Collins in a lovely blue-green cookie jar painted by Abi, waiting to be sprinkled in Estes Park.  Jesse plans to be cremated then "laid to rest" in a plot with his name on it next to Amelia.  Where I shall be buried to be decided.



Civil War Memorial

It's been a while since I've visited a cemetery, really not since Fred's military funeral at Ft. Logan, 11 years ago already.  Perhaps I'll have Dad's and Mom's ashes interred there after Mom passes.  Military cemeteries are especially nice on patriotic holidays, with banners and flags on all the graves.

It's an archeological kick to walk an old cemetery.  The older graves are irregular, with statues and crosses and a variety of sayings carved on them.  Those plots have roses, peonies, iris planted next to the stones, and the owners are required to maintain them.  (If you just had a zombie flash there, so did I.)  Anyway, you have to make arrangements for perpetual maintenance.  The terrain has trees and gentle hills and old roads.

We saw Egyptian steles, stone crosses, "Woodsman"stone  tree stumps, masonic emblems, miniature Jesuses, and stones shaped like flames, mountains, and hearts.  Some stones had photos glued on or pried off, others with photos etched into the stone.

In other sections the markers are all stone wedges, like a meadow of pillows.

More modern areas resemble football fields with rows of brass plates in the ground that groundskeepers can mow over without changing the blades.  Flat, flat, all is flat.

On Memorial afternoon the graves are sunlit and beautiful with the love tokens of the living.  Even in civilian cemeteries the veterans groups get out early planting flags on the graves of "those who served," sections thick with flags alternating with none, reflecting the rhythms of wars.  The flowers and flags give a festive air.  We skipped the 10-gun salutes and color guard ceremonies.  Do you think the dead know we decorate their graves?    Is there satisfaction for the dead in hearing one's name mentioned?

One crypt in the Longmont cemetery is built like a storm cellar, the doors slid aside during a burial, with caskets shoved either to the women's side on the left or the men's.  Wonder how many more generations it will hold?  And wouldn't the thought of it creep you out on a dark and stormy night?