In an email from my cousin, Elaine, from Colorado, she mentioned how she and our grandfather used to go out to the cemetery every Memorial Day to plant flowers on Grandma's grave. Grandma died in 1933, and Grandpa died in 1973. He tended her grave for 40 years, and now Elaine continues the care. The measure of a life can be weighed by those left behind to account for it.
I only remember Grandpa Koop as an image in my life for about five years so I never really thought about him as anyone other than an old man that I saw once a year at Christmas. I never thought of him as a man who had lost his wife. That's why it's so important to learn the songs of our ancestors to appreciate them as more than a one dimensional character who makes a brief appearance in Act III.
Dad will go to Mom's grave this Memorial Day and care for it just as my grandfather did for my grandmother.
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