There are still small towns that have decoration day on Memorial Day. Everyone gathers to clean the headstones of loved ones and sweep the leaves away from the graves. The places no longer visited will be cleaned and swept too as a grace to those that went before.
I like the idea of this renewal of ties to the dead. They are always with us and this morning I am remembering those that have gone before me: my grandparents, the Allens and the Greshams, my great grandmother, LaLocke, my Dad, my great nephew, Gabriel, born and died on the first of this month, a beloved friend’s daughter, died just last week. And in memory of my beloved niece’s brother in law, Lance Corporal Phillip Vinnedge, killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
I leave flowers for them all.