Here lies my father, a soldier

I was very comfortable in this cemetery. My parents maintained the grave sites of family members with clockwork precision; bringing geranium-filled crocks in the Spring, stopping by monthly to spruce up around the stones, weeding, watering, and then bringing the crocks home in the Fall. There was a hand-pump from where, as a little girl, I would wrestle water to fill the sprinkling can. Mom would hand me fistfuls of dead blooms, twigs, and weeds to toss into an enormous gorge which I now realize was just a mild embankment of composting debris. I explored the cemetery, drawn to the solemn mausoleums. I read names, chilled by the children. My mother would quietly re-introduce me to these strangers; members of a family tree that I was forever cut off from.

Years ago, my parents took me and my daughters to see their stone and I wish that day was more etched in my memory than these names now carved in granite. My parents are not here. I do not feel the need to hover over a rock, bequeathing blossoms to a boulder.

My husband, of course, is much wiser than me. 

He patiently waited a couple of months before finally nudging me towards the cemetery.

I turned off my mind (and my heart) as we made another long drive to visit my mother. Or rather, a stone
upon which her name was inscribed.

I was quiet for most of the drive but as we drew close, I asked my husband, my voice quivering, "Will there be grass?" 

"No, baby," he answered, now worried that we'd come too soon. "Are you still okay?"

No.

But I nodded.

We'd brought a bird seed bell to hang in the tree next to my parents.

We pulled up but I found myself paralyzed. I couldn't look. 

Brad got out of the vehicle to place the bell but was soon knocking on my window, urging me to come out. "You have to see," he called through the glass. I approached reluctantly, wincing at the scarred soil but Brad was pointing to the tree, exploding with white and pink buds. My parents' song? Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.

Beautiful.

Brad gave me another couple of months and nudged me again. July. My parents' anniversary. 

The ground was now blanketed in green.

But Brad frowned.

The cemetery swam with small flags, a testament to all who had served.

"Where is your dad's flag?" my husband asked.

A naive civilian, I did not understand the weight of this question. I scanned the area and noticed a nearby grave with two flags. I didn't even have time to take a step before the soldier who was now firmly entrenched with me growled. "Don't even think about it." He walked the perimeter of the area surrounding my parents' grave, finding three more veterans unrecognized. 

The son-in-law was now a sentinel. 

And this over-sight would be corrected.

We had hand-held flags at home but decided to stop at a nearby store to fix the problem immediately. I went in and asked. The clerk accompanied me to the area and we stood before the empty display in shock. "I can't believe that we're sold out," she said apologetically. "But isn't that wonderful?" I replied and we both grinned, heartened by this unique representation of patriotism. 

I wasn't grinning as much, three stores later when we still came up empty.

"Our little flag will have to do," Brad said glumly.

Discouraged, we stopped at our own grocery store on the way home and I made one final attempt. 

BINGO.

"Why do you have two?" Brad asked as I danced across the parking lot to him, waving the flags like I was getting ready to start the Indy 500. "Just in case," I replied.

We returned the next day, adorning my Dad's stone along with another nearby service member's stone with the flags we'd purchased and setting our own, smaller, flags with the other unadorned graves. 

We tidied up my parents' stone and left.

They are not there.

But Brad demonstrated that I can still serve them, honor them, and love them by the small, simple act of visiting a stone. 

Deuteronomy 27: 2-3

...you shall set up for yourselves large stones and coat them with lime and write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over, so that you may enter the land which the Lord your God gives you...