The afternoon sun spilled gold rays all over the place. My Dad and I sat in my car waiting to pull out of the funeral home parking lot and into the processional to the gravesite. My Mom, tired from the day’s activities, had gone back home with other family members. Dad and I had determined to go on to the cemetery for the gravesite service.
Sitting there, headlights on, I realized one of the things I miss about living in a small town. When I come back for a funeral and the procession actually makes it’s way down a road, people still pull over to the side of the road and wait there until the last car in the procession goes by. It is a simple gesture, unspoken yet understood, that speaks volumes about how life and time are valued here. It is also just one small way people know they can show they are thinking of you when they know life is wearing you down.
As we drove the few miles from the funeral home to the cemetery, every car I could see ahead had pulled off the road. It was well into the afternoon by this time, so there was plenty of traffic, school traffic, work traffic, yet all of them stopped for a couple of minutes to pay respects to a man and his family they very likely did not know. They just do that here.
Soon, to our right we saw a carpet of green grass punctuated with marble headstones dotting the rolling hills. We were at the cemetery. There, just over a hill within a rock’s throw from an old white-frame country church building stood a green funeral home tent with it’s spindly legs staked into the ground. As we walked the short distance from the car and toward the gravesite we could see family members milling all over the graveyard. As Dad and I neared the tent, the most obvious thing there was the enormous hole that had been dug in the ground under the tent. Above that hole rested the coffin holding my uncle.
The funeral directors tried rounding up those gathered to get this part of the service started although doing so was like trying to capture and bottle the wind with a butterfly net. A few family members sat down in the chairs under the tent. Some stood just outside the tent while still others were still wandering around in the cemetery. More words were spoken by the ministers. I noted to myself how the phrase ‘dust to dust’ carries a weightier meaning when you can actually reach down to the ground and sift some actual dirt between your fingers.
Since my uncle was a veteran, military were present to complete the service. A gun was stuck in the ground just outside the tent near the head of the grave with a helmet placed on the butt of the gun and dog tags hanging over the helmet. My uncle’s service in the military was recited to those who gathered.
Veterans stood behind the tent and at an appropriate time, raised guns into the air and fired in honor of one of their own, now through with the battles of his life. I watched the men lift their guns against the blue sky and fire away, thankful for the service of such brave men and women, service that secures our freedom to this very moment. The sound of the shots split the quiet of the graveyard and seemed loud enough to rouse those who had rested here for many years. By contrast, family and friends watched quietly. If possible, we all grew even quieter when “Taps” was played, a sad and lone melody escaping into the wide open blue sky.
The flag that had draped my uncle’s casket was then removed and folded. As the flag was folded, a veteran told us what the flag and it’s colors and each fold represented to the veteran. After it was folded, it was given to one of my cousins, who choked on tears as it was handed to him. It took me back to when I was a child and would see this take place, I thought then that the veterans were actually wrapping up their fellow veteran’s heart in the flag and giving it to the family. As I watched my cousin accept the flag for the family, I briefly traveled back to that childhood understanding and thought how at this moment it might as well have been my cousin’s own heart wrapped there in that flag he clutched in his hands as he seemed to be drowning in grief.
Another veteran had gathered the shells that had been shot moments earlier and placed them in a bag. He told us that these shells would be presented to the family at the next military funeral. Another bag of shells was then produced, shells which had been discharged at the last military funeral these men had attended. These shells were presented to my uncle’s family, creating a chain connecting brave men and women to one another and to their families.
The funeral directors were ready to lower my uncle and his casket in the ground. Funeral directors everywhere seem to want those gathered at the grave to leave then; I suppose to spare even more grief. Family and friends did begin to disperse some. I wondered briefly if anyone here would behave like my great uncle had at my grandfather’s funeral. Since my grandfather was my great uncle’s brother, my great uncle would not leave the cemetery until he watched the funeral directors actually lower my grandfather’s casket into the ground and cover it with dirt. I didn’t see anyone headed down that road which brought me a sigh of relief.
The service was over. I spoke with some family and friends and tried speaking one final time to my cousins who had just lost their father. For an instant, I lost track of my Dad. It did not take me long to notice him though. He was tracking down each veteran who had come to the gravesite and had participated in the funeral service. He stopped each veteran, shook hands with them and thanked them for their service and their time on this day. It was another small gesture lost in the overwhelming digest of larger things that I know I will always carry with me.
Dad finished making his rounds. As we left, we did walk a bit further into the cemetery and looked at some of the graves and tombstones, many dating back into the 1800s. I recalled to him the last time I had been in this particular cemetery was for the funeral of a great uncle, my grandmother’s brother, several years prior to this moment. To me, it was another reminder of how the roots of a family tree spread as deep and wide as the roots of the giant oak trees that have snuggled the church house for many years.
We drove away from the churchyard toward Mom and Dad’s house. My Dad, a quiet man, offered very little in the way of deep conversation and I, also a quiet man, provided very little in the way of deep conversation back. I did wonder though what was going through his mind. Was it the same thing that was running the halls of my mind? Was it about the end of life? Was it about times he and his brother had spent together? Was it about family? Was it about how in families, some of us turn out okay and others turn out not as okay? Was it about the choices we make in life and how those choices, good and bad, follow us down every path we take in life? Was it about the realization that we are who we are no matter who we think we are or who we try to be?
To be continued…
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