~may some day others do the same for me~

     My folks are buried in the city cemetery just north of Halstead, Kansas.  It's a place I am very familiar with, having been there about a gazillion times in my 60 years of life.  Nearly everyone from my immediate to extended family has been buried there over the past 100 years.  When we were kids, we often went with our parents to visit the graves and to decorate them on Memorial Day.  My mom and grandmother always loved to walk amongst the gravestones and talk about the people that had already gone on before us.  I remember hearing all of those wonderful stories and considering them to be like lessons in history.  I miss those days and the two women who shared those  sweet and loving remembrances with me.

     Yesterday I was home for a while in Kansas and so I went to the cemetery with my daughter to decorate the graves of my parents, brother, and sister.  It is always a peaceful and pastoral kind of place, one in which I feel at ease.  Even though Highway 50 runs right alongside of it, the traffic noise doesn't seem to bother all that much.  Cars and trucks are going to and fro, east towards Newton and west towards Hutchinson and all points beyond.  Life continues to go on.

     While I was there, I wanted to be sure to leave some flowers for them as I know I won't be there on Decoration Day this year.  I had no fancy floral arrangements to decorate with this time but I decided to leave something different and special for them.  It was an offering that would make them happy if only they would be able to see it.  John and Lois Scott would know that it came from the hearts of two of their "little girls".

   

     My sister Sherry knows how much I love things that remind me of Kansas.  On Super Bowl Sunday, she brought me some sunflowers and wheat to arrange in  a special vase that I had.  We enjoyed them on the table that evening after our supper together.  When she left, I decided to keep them atop the china cupboard and that's where they have stayed for the past nearly 4 months.  As I was packing up to go to Kansas on Friday after school, I thought about what I'd use to make their graves look nice and immediately the sunflowers and wheat came to mind.  Sherry agreed that we should use them for our folks, so into the car they were packed.  Yesterday I placed them in the center of their graves and before I left, I asked Ursela to take a picture of me by them.  

     At first I felt bad that I had no more flowers than just one bouquet to leave them.  Normally I have time to pick up several more so that their graves look nice for the upcoming holiday.  I apologized to my mom, telling her that I was sorry I hadn't any more flowers to leave.  But after I looked at the picture for a while, I realized that my parents would have thought this was the most beautiful arrangement there ever had been.  

     They would not have wished for anything more than these.  

     The view looking up yesterday as I stood next to my mother and father's graves.  It was such a peaceful  feeling to be there.  It was worth driving 6 hours to get home, even if it was for only a brief moment in time.  I'm thankful that my parents taught me to honor those who have gone on before us.

     May some day others do the same for me.