Memorial Day is different things to different people. It’s a day off from work, fishing, boating, and drinking it up…whatever it may be. When the government decided to put it on the calendar as a national holiday, they intended it to be a day to recognize our heroes such as our military, firefighters, police and other rescue personnel for giving their lives to help others.
These intentions are great; I’m all for recognizing these people. But for me, it was an especially bad time for me and my family. On December 3rd, 2005, my middle sister was found dead in her room.
I have to back up a little bit. Lena somehow knew for a long time that she wasn’t going to see her golden years. And because of this, she had told our mom that if anything happened to her, she wanted to be cremated and buried in Ohio with our sister that died as an infant.
So, this takes me back to the year 2006. At the time of her death, Ohio’s winter weather was in full swing. So our parents had set it up with the management at Brookdale Cemetery to open Joy’s plot to put Lena’s urn on top of her casket. The arrangements just so happened to be Memorial Day weekend, which is something I see fitting, since we’ll always remember her.
It’s about 450 miles from our sleepy little town to Elyria, Ohio. It’s a long trip anyway, but the reason behind the trip made it even longer. And the weather, being the normal rainy spring time weather didn’t help any. My husband couldn’t get out of work, so our son and I had to ride with my parents. My baby sister, Lisa, her daughter, Lena’s daughter, and Lisa’s soon to be husband followed behind us. After almost 7 hours of driving, we made it to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
Let me just mention that my grandparents are elderly, grandma is now 87, and grandpa has been deceased for almost 6 months now. They of course took it very hard. Grandpa just broke down crying when he found out about what had happened to Lena. And since he and grandma’s health hasn’t been in good standing for a while, they weren’t able to attend the graveside memorial, which was officiated by the Salvation Army chaplain.
It was wonderful to see family again. It had been since January 1993 since I myself had been there. And that was to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary with them.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been back to Ohio. I wasn’t even able to go to grandpa’s funeral. I felt so bad, because when I was there to bury Lena, I had promised him that I’d be back to see him. Mom said that it was ok, grandpa understood, and that he wanted me to remember him the way he was. But I’ll go back again one day, hopefully before grandma’s passing so I can see her again. After all, she’s my last surviving grandparent. I have to see her again.
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