Memorial Day Weekend --- Post #3

Grave Duty

Memorial Day weekends of years past began with a trip to a neighborhood greenhouse to buy a car-trunkload of geranium plants. Then we would do the graveyard duties. First my father's parents. Then in a nearby city, an older couple that had helped raise my mother. Then my aunt and uncle. Then my mother's cousin. Then another aunt and uncle. On and on to the graves of friends and family on about 5 towns. Then my mother's family and my parents' first child.

Each gravesite meant planting and prayers. That is part of what Memorial Day feels like to me -- planting and prayers. All day long I have had the urge to go out and buy geranium plants. All the above-mentioned graves are hundreds of miles away, but the urge for geranium is strong. I have a porch garden, and I have decided to head out right after typing this and to buy a trunkload of geranium plants. It is an almost primal urge. Remember the dead - and garden.

I got a call this afternoon from my friend Barb. Her sister has a daughter with a child. The child had a loving and caring father. Until today. Little 7 year-old Isaiah's father was killed this morning by a drunk driver. He was 25.

Please pray for them all.

I'll be praying as I plant a geranium for them all.

And no matter who you are reading this -- no matter where you are -- no matter for whom you grieve -- today I will plant a geranium for the deepest cares in your heart as well.

Lord, as I bury my hands in the darkness of your earth, let this geranium give birth to hope and consolation. Amen and amen.