Sunday I traveled to St. Joseph with a friend to decorate the graves of her parents, her sister and a mutual friend. We went to Mount Olivet, another Catholic cemetery, not the same one as the Saturday one, absent the cute kids and the free pens. Instead, a group of grumpy old men greeted us along the entry drive with handfuls of cheap American flags for bargain prices (made in China, no doubt). For mere dollars we could stick them on the graves of deceased veterans. I drove by without stopping and with my windows rolled up. None of the people we were there to see had served in the military of any country.
Every ten feet or so, a tasteful sign alerted us to the need for donations to resurface the roads in the cemetery. What’s this with Catholic cemeteries and bad roads? Is this symbolic of the state of the Church International or just their cemeteries?
We stopped at the main office for a map to the graves and to get water for the flowers we’d brought. For the last two years, due to lack of funds, the water in the cemetery has been turned off requiring people to stop at the office for a bucket of water to fill vases and other containers. This year the water had been turned on all over the cemetery causing my friend to comment on the effectiveness of fundraising activities.
With the map in hand, we headed to her sister’s grave in the “children’s section.” I parked the car and we headed to the grave, but it wasn’t there. I looked around for landmarks and couldn’t find a one. I looked at the map again. My friend arranged the flowers for the grave, while I wandered among the flat markers. As I searched, I remembered a series of stories my mother had told me about visiting graves with my Aunt Gladys.
Every year my mother visited Aunt Gladys in Yucaipa, California. During their time together, Aunt Gladys would call her “girl” friends, they’d pile in her car and head to the VA Cemetery in Westminster, California, 2½ hour to the coast, to decorate the graves of their deceased spouses…some had more than one dead husband.
The oldest woman insisted the cemetery had moved her husband’s ashes to a higher drawer in the mausoleum. Someone suggested she had shrunk which just made it seem like he was higher than before. The others told her nothing had changed, but she demanded to stop at the office and talk to the manager.
“But, madam, we never move anyone. Once they’ve been placed, they remain there for eternity.”
The woman muttered all the way back home about her husband being moved.
Another time the groups arrived to find the entire graveyard under water. Being so close to the ocean meant the water table was high under normal circumstances. A recent series of rainstorms had caused flooding along the coast, including higher water levels in the cemetery. The VA Cemetery had become the VA Cemetery & Water Park.
The sight of the vast lake reduced one woman to tears and left the others in a state of shock. They stopped at the manager’s office.
One woman broke into tears. “My husband hated the water. He couldn’t swim.”
Aunt Gladys, in an unusually practical frame of mind, said, “But, honey, he’s dead.”
To which her friend said, “Gladys, he’s awaiting resurrection in a vault filled with water. He’s drowning until hen rises from his grave. I can’t have that.”
The VA cemetery raised the level of the cemetery by applying several inches of new dirt to the grounds to keep the lake from reappearing. That solution caused my own “grave moving” experience with my mother and aunt.
On her first visit, after the application of additional of layers of dirt, my aunt swore they’d moved Uncle Roy’s grave. “Lucile, I don’t remember him being this far from the road.”
My mother looked around. “Gladys, it’s always been here. See that tree over there. We’re still the same distance away from it. I don’t think they would have moved the tree too.”
“You’re sure?”
My mother hugged her. “Yes, Gladys, he hasn’t moved an inch.”
I had laughed at all those stories, but especially the last one. Who would every think someone had moved a grave?
Sunday as I stood looking for the sister’s grave, I would have sworn that someone had picked up her marker and moved it. The marker was under a tree branch that I didn’t remember being there.
While my friend cleaned off the stone, I sat on a nearby tombstone orienting myself. The tree had grown in two years and now a branch hung over the grave. That was it.
Next stop: her parents’ graves. She spotted the marker first. I thought it was further down the pot-holed road, but there it was, closer to the road and nearer the intersection. When we went in search of our friend’s grave, it had moved to a new location. I’m almost 100% sure. My appreciation of what those old women had experienced grew with each “moved” grave.
Maybe it’s another aspect of growing older and being over 60, graves appear to move. I’d better drive up to the cemetery in Gower to see if my parents’ graves had relocated. I’d hate to lose track of them
My father liked the spot where his body came to rest almost 30 years ago. “It’s got a good view of the countryside from this little rise” I’ll check to make sure the view’s the same. They better not have moved him too.