Sunday, May 24, 2009

Say it with plastic flowers...

It's Memorial Day, and I am upset.

And a bit pissed off.

I don't get it anyway - I'm from England. I remember my daughter every day, and it just got under my skin today when people were asking if we'd decorated the grave yet, because it was my responsibility as a mother (or H's as a father) to do it in time for Memorial Day.

I had some flowers for Josie, and I went and put them in the ground at her grave site. It just made me mad though, because in England we would have been able to dig into the earth at her grave and plant living flowers. You can't do that here because "the flowers will get mown over". Headstones, plastic flowers and if you're lucky, a metal thing to stick in the ground in which you are allowed to place one pot of real flowers, because the wonderful gardeners can't steer around planted areas. Amazing how they can in the UK - obviously they have different lawn-mowers.

Talking about metal things, H made a lovely one from scratch, but it's not quite ready yet.

Anyway so here we are, I'm decorating her grave with these plastic flowers because I'm obliged to do so because it's what everyone else is doing, and I sit there at the grave feeling angry. Plastic is not indicative of how I feel for her. Plastic is not a natural material. I'm not "into" silk flowers - not even these ones, which are so pretty, because they don't have any life force within them.

But whatever. It's done now. I sat there and put my hands on her little patch, and tried not to cry. I'm glad I was by myself.

Memorial Day. Every day is Memorial Day when you're me.

4 comments:

Shannon Ryan said...

That sure does suck - I'm not a fan of plastic flowers either! I didn't even think about doing anything special because it's memorial day.. funny. But as you said, we remember our babies EVERY day, no need for a special day to do that.

Anonymous said...

Some people are asshats. Especially the ones who can't mow around friggin' headstones (I've thought that was a janky rule for YEARS).

Shelley said...

I can understand your anger :( That is a shitty answer to sya they cannot mow around them.
Here in Texas - you cannot even put your own metal thingy out- it has to be purchased and placed by the funeral home. THAT'S asshats for you.
My husband's father didn't have the plot paid off for his mothers grave yet - so we placed a small statue on the spot because they wont let them put a marker out until it's paid. They took the statue away and we could never get an answer on where it went

Anonymous said...

I don't like plastic flowers either! That really is too bad. It is also odd that people were asking you if you planned to do something for your daughter for Memorial Day--because it commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. I don't understand why they would not know this? At any rate, I think you should be able to plant all the flowers you want on your daughter's grave.