Remembering Loved Ones
(and decorating their graves)
By Sandy Pugh
My husband and I go to Mullinville every change of the season and on Memorial Day to put flowers on his parents and brothers’ graves. Then on the way back to Hutchinson we take a detour at Pratt and drop down to Medicine Lodge and change the flowers on my parents’ graves.
Sometimes depending on the flowers that I have in the trunk and how we are doing on time, we will go from Medicine Lodge to Sun City to put flowers out for my maternal Grandparents. I don’t make the trek every time to do theirs but try to get there once a year.
I had an aunt that lived in Sun City that I could depend on doing theirs but she is no longer living so it is up to me to do Grandfather and Grandmothers graves. I have so many wonderful memories of them that I can’t imagine not decorating their graves when I get the chance.
One year when I took my mother down to decorate my dad’s grave in Medicine Lodge we drove over to Sun City to my maternal Grandparents graves. I always had a shovel with me because mom liked to dig up Yucca plants along the road on the way down and plant them near my Grandparents.
Yucca plant flowers were a favorite of Grandmothers and she liked to take her some. But they didn’t seem to survive in that cemetery. One year when we took their flowers over I noticed a grave stone that was so old that I was sure they didn’t have any family still living.
The whole grave was covered with purple iris. The cemetery crew left them alone until after Memorial Day every year so they had bloomed. I took the shovel over and dug up just a few of the iris at the foot of the grave that were in the walkway between that grave and the next stone.
I planted them on my maternal Grandmothers side of their graves. They lived and flourished for awhile but I haven’t seen them there for years. But hopefully she enjoyed them for a few years and knew who had planted them for her.
I tried for years and years to get a rose bush to survive beside my parent’s stone in Medicine Lodge. Daddy always had red rose bushes in the yard and sometimes hedges made from them. There are lots of graves in that cemetery that have plants and trees growing beside the stones but for some reason the rose bushes and even a yucca that I planted were mowed down every time I planted one.
So finally after complaining every year for years and they kept mowing every thing down, I bought 2 vases for the stone. I put flowers in the vases for my parents for each season or at least twice a year and they have left them alone so far. They do have a tendency to mow over or break the WWII emblem that is supposed to sit by dad’s stone.
They moved the emblem once and cemented it into the cement base the stone sits on but still managed to break off the top of that one too. I haven’t seen any others in that row by the road in the cemetery that have had that done to them. Not sure why his seems to be the one they always break off.
We just made a trip to the cemetery that my folks are buried in and they got my dad a brand new emblem for WWII and it is planted in the ground beside his stone. So we will see next time I am down there if it is still in one piece. I sure hope so. At least I don’t have to pay for them when they damage them.
My husband and I make the 2 hour trip to our home town where his parents are buried with the changing of the seasons too. There will be no one who will put any flowers on their stone or our stone after we are gone. My siblings could not find my parents stone in Medicine Lodge if they had to and I am not sure there are any of my husband’s family still around to do his folks.
We didn’t have vases put on our stone because we knew there wouldn’t be anyone to put flowers in them or even his parents or my parents when we are gone. It is too bad the younger generation have not learned to remember their family members on Memorial Day.
I always enjoyed taking my mother to Medicine Lodge to decorate daddy’s stone and then on over to her parents in Sun City. I hope the Iris plants I pilfered from an overgrown grave and walkway will continue to live and grow and bloom on my maternal Grandparents grave.
So the question is ……….is decorating graves and remembering loved ones a dying tradition and no one will decorate graves in the not to distant future? I hope people continue to remember their loved ones and decorate their graves so they are not forgotten. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
