A Birthday Remembered

This past Saturday would have been my mother’s 85th birthday. In previous years we’d go out to Ohio in mid July to the cemetery in the little town where my father’s grandparents had lived to visit her grave in the family plot. Drawing water from a pump we’d water the shrubs, clean off the headstones, pull any weeds, and maybe plant some flowers. Sometimes I’d take a silk flower vine and wrap it around the marker as it seemed to fit just perfectly.
Last summer was the 15th anniversary of her death and it would have been impossible for my dad to have made the trip. It was then when we decided to move things closer to home and we planted two azaleas in the memorial garden at church.
This year we decided we do something on her birthday. I dug up some of my Stella D’ Oro flowers and we transplanted those into the garden at church. Afterwards we attended Saturday evening service and Barbara was kind enough to include my mom in the sermon. Afterwards we all went out to dinner to a little restaurant in town. I’d like to think that my mom was there too, knowing we had remembered after all . . .

Copyright © 2005 Deborah Sharp Loeb