overdue catch-up again
Dec. 12th, 2008 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kip_w.
Cathy's mom visited. Sarah was looking forward to it strenuously, then after a day or so, started saying she wished Grammy would go home. This, we told her, was not acceptable behavior. I believe it was due to Sarah coveting the queen-size bed we put in the guest room, causing her to realize suddenly that her own bed hurt her back, ow ow. Grammy took it with the patience of an experienced grade school teacher, and it was a pretty good visit.
Sarah and I went out Sunday morning to bowl, as usual. On the way in we passed the cemetery on the corner where we stopped on Veterans' Day to re-stand a fallen flag. "There are people buried under there," she said.
"Yes." "Why do they put them there?" Ah. We were back to this topic.
I considered. "To show respect. People like to visit their friends and loved ones." "Did you bury your mother?"
"No, she was cremated." "What's cremated?" Well, I did ask for it, didn't I? "It's where instead of burying somebody, they burn them up." There must have been a better answer. Maybe "Hey, look! I think I see Santa Claus!" I liked it better when we were talking about her wiggly tooth.
"Why did you do that?" "Well, Grandpa doesn't believe much in graveyards." Indeed, Dad had once said he wouldn't mind being buried in a pine box in the middle of nowhere with an acorn on top of him, but I wasn't going to offer that concept to Sarah just yet.
"How do you remember your mommy?" "I just remember her," I said. Then we had to pay attention to traffic a bit. A quarter mile later, she asked another question about graves of family members. Come to think of it, I only know one grave of any member of my family: my paternal grandparents' plot in Bandera, Texas. I mentioned it.
Conversation languished, or the topic changed, at that point. We neared the bowling alley. I remember one time going to a cemetery in Illinois with Mom and lurking around, studying the grass and looking for four-leaf clovers. I don't remember its location, or ever knowing whose grave she was looking at. I can't ask her now, any more than I can ask my grandma the names of the ancestors in the daguerreotypes and tintypes and paper prints I brought back from Texas. Unknown men and women, boys and girls, standing or sitting stiffly in quaint clothes.
At the bowling alley, Sarah had her best day. She picked up spare after spare, and rolled straight down the middle quite a few times. She won the first line 111 to 106, and the second 112 to 93. I bowled as well as I could; it just wasn't too good that day.
(to be continued in another post)
.
Cathy's mom visited. Sarah was looking forward to it strenuously, then after a day or so, started saying she wished Grammy would go home. This, we told her, was not acceptable behavior. I believe it was due to Sarah coveting the queen-size bed we put in the guest room, causing her to realize suddenly that her own bed hurt her back, ow ow. Grammy took it with the patience of an experienced grade school teacher, and it was a pretty good visit.
Sarah and I went out Sunday morning to bowl, as usual. On the way in we passed the cemetery on the corner where we stopped on Veterans' Day to re-stand a fallen flag. "There are people buried under there," she said.
"Yes." "Why do they put them there?" Ah. We were back to this topic.
I considered. "To show respect. People like to visit their friends and loved ones." "Did you bury your mother?"
"No, she was cremated." "What's cremated?" Well, I did ask for it, didn't I? "It's where instead of burying somebody, they burn them up." There must have been a better answer. Maybe "Hey, look! I think I see Santa Claus!" I liked it better when we were talking about her wiggly tooth.
"Why did you do that?" "Well, Grandpa doesn't believe much in graveyards." Indeed, Dad had once said he wouldn't mind being buried in a pine box in the middle of nowhere with an acorn on top of him, but I wasn't going to offer that concept to Sarah just yet.
"How do you remember your mommy?" "I just remember her," I said. Then we had to pay attention to traffic a bit. A quarter mile later, she asked another question about graves of family members. Come to think of it, I only know one grave of any member of my family: my paternal grandparents' plot in Bandera, Texas. I mentioned it.
Conversation languished, or the topic changed, at that point. We neared the bowling alley. I remember one time going to a cemetery in Illinois with Mom and lurking around, studying the grass and looking for four-leaf clovers. I don't remember its location, or ever knowing whose grave she was looking at. I can't ask her now, any more than I can ask my grandma the names of the ancestors in the daguerreotypes and tintypes and paper prints I brought back from Texas. Unknown men and women, boys and girls, standing or sitting stiffly in quaint clothes.
At the bowling alley, Sarah had her best day. She picked up spare after spare, and rolled straight down the middle quite a few times. She won the first line 111 to 106, and the second 112 to 93. I bowled as well as I could; it just wasn't too good that day.
(to be continued in another post)
.
