by Sheila White Arnold
She’s been gone nine years now, and for all of those nine years, I have been faithful to honor her tradition of bringing flowers to the cemetery on Decoration Day. Each year, right before the first Sunday in May, I have (sometimes begrudgingly) made my trek to the local craft store and I have bought a large pre-made plastic or silk bouquet to go into the granite vase that sits between her and Dad’s headstones, and I’ve bought one pink and two blue smaller bouquets to place by the markers where my 3 stillborn siblings lay. This year, the craft stores were not open because of the global pandemic of Covid-19, so I silently promised myself that I would honor her in a different manner this year.
I took the weedeater and a hoe with me as I drove to the country church where many of my family rest. It is a beautiful small church, surrounded by mature hardwood trees with a rolling hillside for the cemetery. I thought that maybe I could trim some of the grass away from the headstones or at least make it look a little neater with my tools. When I got there, the grass looked immaculate, so I used my time to explore. The last time I was in that church building was for my aunt’s funeral a few years before my mother passed away. I only remember it being small and intimate—a typical Baptist church with the Sunday School attendance board on the wall, a small choir loft with a baptistry behind it. We did get permission to use the church’s portable activities building for a family gathering following Mom’s funeral where we shared barbecue, beans, potato salad, fried chicken and a banana pudding while cousins, family friends, siblings, nieces and nephews laughed, talked all at the same time, and reminisced. We all wore our buttons that said “I was Mom’s favorite”, or “I was Mamaw’s favorite”, or “Aunt Della’s favorite”. The truth is, we each were her favorite. Other than those two occasions, I couldn’t remember being inside that structure, and today I was not able to enter the church. I was certain it is kept locked and possibly monitored because it is such a remote area. Instead, I walked among the granite and marble witnesses of so many dear souls. I recognized several surnames; names of people that I recall my parents talking about when I was growing up. I wondered what their friendship with my parents had been like and what stories they had known about the two of them that I would never know. I tried to remember how my uncle had died. His tombstone indicates that he died for his country, but I don’t know how and there is no one left to ask. I noticed that several of the graves had been visited for this annual ritual of Decoration Day and that made me feel even more guilty for not putting on my mask and going into Walmart to purchase some fake flowers, despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
I pulled my lawn chair out of my SUV and sat for a while next to the plots where the ground is now intermixed with my parents. The only sounds were the birds singing and the breeze blowing. Dragonflies danced around making me wonder if there was a pond nearby. Closing my eyes, I let my memories flow. I could see the Decoration Days of long ago. The church service was outside and the preacher was loud. There was a gospel quartet playing music and they were loud. There were lots of children I didn’t know, and they were loud. There were tables and tables of food and people everywhere. At some point, we would walk to my uncle’s grave and to three small spots labeled with little plastic markers that simply said, “Baby Boy White”, “Baby Girl White”, “Baby Boy White”. Each one had a date. Mom would have some flowers cut from our yard that she arranged in mason jars. She would leave one at each grave. Arrangements of peonies, hydrangeas, tea roses and, if there were still any blooming, some daffodils were the offerings to memories of loved ones. She would linger, silently for a while, especially at the memories of her babies.
As years passed, Mom never failed to get flowers to those graves for Decoration Day. The number of graves grew to include another uncle, our father and our beloved aunt. At some point, the plastic markers that marked the graves of her unnamed babies were replaced with granite markers. When she could no longer drive, I would make sure she could get to the cemetery to honor those she loved so dearly. And now, nine years after she joined those family members, I choose to honor her. Her headstone would not be adorned with flowers for Decoration Day, thanks to Covid-19, but one day soon, just as soon as I feel safe to shop again, I will make sure she has peonies, hydrangeas, roses and daffodils. In the meantime, I will lean into my memories of her and I will try to honor her the way she honored others.
