We’ve all been there …
You know the times when “stuff” piles up in whichever room. The sheer amount of “stuff” overwhelms you, but you organize or schedule it for donation or trash little-by-little. It becomes manageable.
I mean this literally and figuratively because I had go through a lot of stuff to sort, store, and toss from Christmas cemetery and house decorations to Valentine’s Decorations for the cemetery for my daughter’s grave and for the children whose graves I tend to on the Kinder Memorial Walk.
I can honestly say it was a good week, even if one situation made me mad.
1. the park
For the longest time, I have not wanted to go to a park. My son, Hayes now ten-and-a-half, loves the park or anytime he can play outside. We have a play set at home, but I recognize the need for him to be around other children both at school and at the park in the town where we live.
Last week, I struggled with going, and talking to people. One woman, who I know didn’t mean anything by her comment, said, “I’d die if anything happened to my children or grandchildren.”
Well, I don’t have that choice. I must go on, so just like a work out, going to the park made my emotional muscles sore.
We went back two days this week after we went to the cemetery. On one occasion, a father and grandfather mistook other children around me as mine. They could not believe I had only one child with me.
No, I just bond with children and teens a lot more easily than I do adults.
But, I was able to handle conversations, and feel those emotional muscles flex more easily.
2. THE CEMETERY
It was clean up week at the cemetery where my daughter, Corrie, is buried where the staff takes down Christmas items left at graves. I’ve had some issues with the actions of cemetery staff before. For example:
Cemetery staff will constantly leave grass debris over the grave markers of certain children for whom I care, and I’ve found it on my mother-in-law’s grave.
For those who may not relate, think of your house or apartment. Anywhere you live. Your kid or spouse throws their jacket on the floor. They have muddy shoes. They keep on those muddy shoes and track them through the house.
This is similar to how it feels to find mess on the grave markers of family members, but especially those of children. My husband, John, puts some type of border around our daughter’s grave to limit the amount of grass that will grow.
3. families don’t like it
On the week of March 1, 2021; I felt myself become stronger. I felt myself flexing emotional muscles. One of those is finding a positive solution to my anger with cemetery maintenance.
When I spoke with the primary gentleman at Corrie’s cemetery, I expressed my concern at the fact flowers had completely disappeared from the older graves of babies and children for which I care. We’re talking children who died between 1885 and 1922.
The first argument the gentleman presented was that some families do not like decorations on the graves at all and will remove them.
When I addressed him with the facts:
- Most of these graves I’ve cared for since July and August 2020, which other than grass debris, have been left alone.
- These older graves are never visited by anyone except for me.
- If this was the case, I would expect said families to remove flowers from the more modern graves where most of the decorations were left alone.
- I only care for graves that have not received attention.
He fell back on his original argument. Never once did he hear what I was trying to tell him.
4. TIME TO TAKE DOWN CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
The other argument this gentleman presented was that the staff only removes old looking flowers and Christmas decorations. I explained to him I’d taken down all Christmas decorations just after New Year’s. He did not want to hear the fact that the flowers at the older grave were not old. They were not faded spring flowers from two seasons ago, which I’ve witnessed left everywhere.
Before Wednesday, the last time I’d been able to go to the cemetery was two Saturdays ago. I redecorated several graves and Corrie’s grave for St. Patrick’s. I was coming back for these graves. The kind gentlemen of the cemetery got rid of all of:
- Edith Eudora’s
- Albert’s
- Dan Olive’s
- Olivia Kate’s
- Infant Black’s
- Alma’s
- Charlie’s
- and worst of all: all eight Allen children’s …
… decorations.
If you’ve lost a child, you understand how important it is to say or write the child’s name. When I stand at Edith Eudora’s grave, I feel a kindred spirit with her mother who wrote the poem on her grave.
But when I saw all eight Allen children’s decorations gone, I was taking my deep breaths to control my temper.
5. Moms Talk
But, even in death, Moms talk.
Months ago, I met a mom who’d lost her son. He is buried in the Angel Garden, also called “Baby Land.” She made me aware of how the maintenance staff would leave trash and debris all over children’s graves to the point a local news station wrote about it.
Near the end of the conversation, the gentleman of the cemetery brought up my Corrie’s memorial.
He said, “We”ll need you to do something about all the stuff at your daughter’s grave to create a path for the mower.”
Now I understand the need for a mower path, but I said, just as I did for her and other children last year, “I’d rather mow and take care my daughter’s grave myself. I can cut the grass there.”
And he would not be moved.
The key part is though, I know if I had not called him, the cemetery staff might’ve messed with Corrie’s decorations as they did the sweet babies in the Angel Garden.
In the growth of an angel mom, I am finding the strength to stand up for what I know is wrong because if you think for once I’m:
oversensitive
vulnerable
Then attempt to walk in the shoes of a parent who expects their child’s memorial to remain beautiful and for the staff to respect it.
Although I was angered by this incident, it did not destroy my week. It did not send me into some spiral. Instead, I felt it was a very good week for me. This week was one of the best in a while.
I’m just flexing those budding muscles of an angel mom.
Corrie's Season 