Memorial Day Memories

What Comes Next

I never got to meet my grandparents, Mary and John, but my mom and I decorated their graves in Oskaloosa every Memorial Day. Back then, it was permissible to plant living plants at the cemetery and collect them a few days later. My mom always chose red geraniums. To this day, this very day, I associate red geraniums with Memorial Day and our annual trips to the cemeteries to honor those who had gone before us. The ritual of decorating our family’s gravesites is etched into the fiber of my being as permanently as their names are etched into the granite. As the years passed, more and more relatives were honored. It was during these visits that I got to ask questions about my unknown grandparents and their brothers and sisters, only a handful of the aunts and uncles I got to know. Standing at the graves, weeding pulling and planting, Mom would share her story; most of which she kept locked up during the rest of the year.