Decoration Day

Maybe it's an old-fashioned term, but I grew up calling it Decoration Day. We would go to the cemetery on the hill above Ritzville with buckets of peonies in the trunk of our Mother's car. She would generally have a large old knife with her that she would use to cut away the grass that had grown over the edges of the stones during the previous year. Mom knew where her parents' graves were located - she didn't have to check the map like I have to. She would cut away the grass and wash the stones, then leave her flowers in the urns.  I have very vague memories, I think, of going there even earlier with Grandma Kubik.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that my father also had a set of grandparents buried in the Ritzville cemetery. Since he never went to the cemetery with us, I don't know if Mom was even aware the Blackwells were buried there. When we were in North Carolina looking for Grandma Haight's family graves, I discovered that her parents had come west and lived their last years in Ritzville.

My Dad's parents were cremated and their cremains are in a crematorium in Spokane. I went there once with my Auntie June and found it a very depressing place. I think I've been back only one other time. We scattered my Dad's ashes in Cow Lake as he wished and our Mother's and Aunt Maggie's ashes are scattered amongst Sister Sherry's roses.

Forry's grand-parents are buried in the old rural Lutheran cemetery (that is now on Hutterite Colony property) while his parents are buried at the Menno Mennonite Cemetery near the ranch.

That's a lot of graves to decorate. I think it's more the idea of taking time to remember those that came before us. Then you add to that the idea of remembering all of our deceased servicemen and women, it makes for an awesome day.