Remembering

My mom died 6 years ago today. I remembered.

If anyone else remembered it was silently because no one said anything to me. Not that I really wanted anyone to say anything. It isn't as though I think we should celebrate it or something.

I wrote about her death and the events leading up to it just now in this blog. I had a whole bunch of words typed out. But I erased everyone one of them.

Erasing. That's what it feels like to me. I mean death feels like erasing. I think I may well be the only person that remembered my mom's death today. A few weeks ago was her birthday and a few of us remembered and mentioned it to each other. I will remember all the dates for a while, maybe a long while. But others will gradually forget.

Back when mom died I used to take dad to the cemetery every day. That's when I realized that I didn't know when my grandparents and my aunts and uncles had died. I didn't remember when my friends died. I had an entire calendar of deaths for a while. Morose I know.

Cemeteries are interesting places. I spent so much time out there with dad. Some graves are visited but most aren't. The older ones are visited less and the newer ones are visited more. There are some exceptions but even then it is because of one or two people who visit and I always wondered if someone else would take over when they quit coming.

Dad would stand and talk to mom. I would move away so he could be alone there with her. I would walk among the others and read their names and dates. I would imagine their stories. And oftentimes there would be other alive people out there and I would watch them but from afar. Or I would watch the funeral graveside services.

Even then I knew that someday we would stop coming. And we did finally. One day dad just said no he didn't want to go out there anymore. And that was that.

Dad and mom visited the cemetery a few times a year. Mom would get flowers and they would decorate the graves of their parents and dad's sister and her husband. And sometimes they would visit other cemeteries where other family members were buried and they'd do the same things.

I never wanted to go. I didn't find it very interesting or important. And after all those people were dead and what difference did it make if there were flowers there or whatever. It wasn't like they'd know.

And now it is my time to visit the graves. There are more of them. I realize it isn't about decorations at all. It is about remembering.

Someday I will follow my parents in death. Maybe my son or daughter will take up the task when that happens. Or maybe not.

I realized something else though during the cemetery period. Finally it occurred to me that there weren't many of us in my family actually alive. Most of us are already on the other side. I know a very few of them. I know the names of a few more. But I feel connected to all of them just the same.

Someday I will see them all. I don't know what they are all doing over there but I am pretty certain they are busy and happy. I always imagine it will be kind of like the big family reunions that I remember as a child except the bathrooms will be nicer.

Anyway my mom died 6 years ago today and I remembered.