Friday, 12 March 2010 -- Day 82 (95)

This long, snowy winter has kept me from thinking about Mom's body being buried in the cemetery. I just got off the phone w/ Dad, who said he might go out there tomorrow since quite a bit of the snow is gone. Sitting here now, I had a vision of tending her grave once the grass is grown over it and then lying on the ground, knowing she's there six feet below. That thought saddens me, yet it comforts. Up until the time that I became a mother at age 29, I sat on my mom's lap on a regular basis, not an easy feat since I'm 5'7, and she was 5'2. It was a quiet time for just the two of us, much the same I'm sure as it was when I was smaller. I like the thought of sitting on the ground by her grave and imagining I'm sitting on her lap to tell her what's happening in my life. A cemetery really is a place for the living, for it's the living who go there to tend, to remember, to find solace, to weep, and to cherish life. A cemetery provides us an anchor to the last known place of a loved one's body. We can't be close to them in heaven so we seek the only closeness we can, a physical one at a place where we can touch and sit.