"Joe P." 1925 to 2008 - Gone Fishin'

Well, mom and I had been planning for the last few days to go out and decorate dad's grave for the fall.

For those of you that do not know Mom, she is a decorator - holiday decorator - yard, porch and now dad's grave. I know he is shaking his head right now... kinda amuzed by it, cause she is his pretty little blonde girl, and partly annoyed that she spends money on this stuff.

Well, for one reason or another, we did not go out on each of those planned trips.

Finally, on Sunday, Mom wasn't able to find her floral wire to tie the fall flowers onto the decorative post at his grave. So, instead of decorating his grave on Sunday afternoon, then going to Red Lobster for the all you can eat shrimp (no I did not eat any of them), we went to Michael's crafts, (ok to Lowes also - the car does not leave the house without a stop there or Homo Depot -- btw way it is decidely NOT very homo here...) and on to Red Lobster.

We decided she would do the flowers on Monday morning then she would drive out by herself and decorate it and make a few stops in New Lebanon - where I grew up, to do her errands. She went and did her errands but did not go to the cemetary. She came home, called me and we decided she would come help with the house, then I would drive her out there and we would go to her house and have dinner.

Mom has been struggling with the gravemarker issue. On one hand, his grave is unmarked and she feels that is disrespectful. On the other hand, she has said more than once "seeing his name on that stone is what will make it real."

Well, on the way to the cemetary I found out why she waited. She told me that last night dad told her the grave marker was there. Now, from a previous post you may remember the marker being ordered and a 50% deposit being paid. The cemetary said they would call when it came in, and after she paid the remaining 50%, they would set the marker at the grave.

I gently reminded mom of this, and that it probably would not be in until another week at least. She was insistent that it was there, dad said it was so. Now, she was not always fond of agreeing with dad or listening to him in the past, but, times have changed.

We arrived at the cemetary, and I was just ahead of her walking to the grave with all of our decorations. (it is ok to laugh, really). I noticed it looked different, and was not clear about the status. I thought they may have just done the prep work, but no, as we came closer, they had set the gravemarker out in its' marble base. I really think they must have done it earlier today, or perhaps yesterday, because I know they would have called to tell her they had done it so she would not be surprised by it. There was also fresh tire tracks in the grass leading up to his grave and stopping there.

Well, seems dad took care of the notification detail for them...

As one could imagine, mom was highly emotional and did some intense grieving, seeing his name in bronze on that marker. I was so glad she trusted her intuition and had me go with her. I would have really felt awful if she had to go through that alone.

After some grieving, we started to decorate and our moods lightened a bit. We even joked about taking a pair of his overalls and putting his shoes, a ballcap and a life-sized picture of his face on them and setting them at his grave complete with a fishing pole. About 50% of the time, Dad would have found that idea funny, so don't go thinking I was disrespecting him. I inherited that weird shit equally from both of them.

I offered to stay the night with mom, but she declined and said she'd be ok, well as ok as she will ever be.

I am going to go and call her to check on her before bed.

We took pictures of the fall decorations. I will post a picture, or two, along with a photo of the marker, in a few days or a couple of weeks...

I am trying to imagine Tashi hanging out with Dad. Tashi and dad both love the water, so maybe they are now fishing together in spirit. I sure do miss them both.