In a family, if we're lucky, everyone has at least one special role for which they're appreciated. I am my family's trivia master and clown, the one who points out the dark and light humor in most every situation and knows classic TV families' histories as well she knows her own. My younger brother, Mike, does free brake jobs on family members' cars and, now that our dad's dead, provides punishable-by-law, tasteless jokes at family functions.
My older sister, Linda, gave our parents their first grandchildren, saving me scads of money and, perhaps, a long stint in a padded room. And years ago, Linda took on the job of helping our mother place floral tributes in our family's cemetery plots on Decoration Day – funny, since it turns out she's the sibling most freaked about dying. It's not because she's oldest and likely to go first, I tell her, but because she's worried that once she's pushing up daisies, I'll place huge plastic sunflowers that squirt Pinot Grigio on her grave and shame her in front of generations of Harney teetotalers. I like the God's-gonna-get-ya look on her face when I tell her that, and the no-cremation speech I get when I tell her she'll have to find my poor little ashes before she can fling flowers at them.
Anyhoo, decorating 30 graves – those of her husband, our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and our father – is not a job Linda takes lightly, though, unlike our maternal grandma, she does not start worrying about tributes for the deceased members of our family around Valentine's Day.
“Helen, do we have all the flowers yet?” Grandma asked our mother several times a week in the days leading up to Decoration Day. “Yes,” my mother replied, running from the room before Grandma, whose caterwauling version of “In the Sweet By and By” was neither sweet nor gone bye-bye soon enough, started “singing” and whipping out her list of whose grave needed what. I cannot imagine that happening to my sister, because she does not sing and as far as I can tell, has never made a list in her life.
But today, as Linda and our mother traveled from one country cemetery to another, it hit me: My sister fills one of the most important roles in any family - that of the person who walks the walk when it comes to a sense of family responsibility. No matter where she is a week before Decoration Day, Linda always finds her way to those dusty back roads and easily overlooked cemeteries to make sure those who've “gone home” are not forgotten, calling me from the truck to tell me where she is and how everything looks.
While I make jokes about how only our father would want a flying fish on his tombstone, to complement our mother's praying hands, Linda's there at Daddy's side, worrying about whether she and my mom “got to everyone” this year. I hope that when she and all those Harneys and Moores and assorted relatives meet on that beautiful shore – where Grandma's still screeching, I bet – they shower her with more roses than Secretariat got on Derby Day. She'll deserve that, at the very least, after my squirting-sunflower sendoff.
This makes me laugh. Not because I know everyone you're writing about except screeching Grandma, but because all five of us have roles, too. However, if you were to ask each one of separately and privately, you'd probably get different answers as to what each of us thinks our, and each other's, roles are. With only 3 of you, maybe yours are well defined, but with five, we're bound for overlap :)
ReplyDeleteBut I have to share this because I know you, of all people, will appreciate why it made me laugh until I cried at the Oddville Methodist Church cemetery Sunday morning.
My brother David got there before the rest of us and could hardly wait until I reached his car before telling me to come with him as he was chuckling. I don't know if you remember David much, but I wasn't sure if I was about to receive a history lesson on my mom's side of the family, or a demo of how he could divine water with the jumper cables from his Toyota, but because I am who I am, I followed a few steps into the cemetery and there it was. A relatively new headstone in this cemetary that hadn't had one in my lifetime probably. On one side of this shiny new stone was a color oval of two fighting roosters, artfully captured in flying fury. On the other side was the names of husband and wife, color ovals of their faces, rendered artfully or maybe not since I don't know them, and this lovely message to all who wander past for generations to come.
"If there's a cockfight in heaven, you'll find us there."
I'm not kidding. And I shoulda taken a picture, but you know the Mrs. is still living, and what good would that pic be if I couldn't put it on Facebook, and with my luck, she is, or is related, to one of the friend requests I've accepted from someone I really don't know all that well, or at all in some cases, and I would never want to hurt a fellow FB'er's feelings, but it was a really good giggle and one Dad would have loved, wouldn't he?
OK - I was going to post how sweet (and funny) your post was Britt. I, too, am one of two cemetery decorators in my family following a long line of them. :) It's a very special thing for me to get to do every other month. BUT - I must post to you and Nesijean how hilarious the cockfighting tombstone is!!!!!! I immediately sent the posts to ALL of my cousins. This may cause us to race to Garland Brook and rip out our plain, ole family stone! Too funny!!! Thank you both for sharing! :) Britt - we miss you!
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