Memorial Day

I remember one of my first memorial Days I went my mother to the cemetery to put on flowers. When we were done I did not want to get in the car so my mother drove off and left me. She actually never had me out of her sight but I was scared and crying when she returned. As I was growing up we went many places and different cemeteries. Her twin was in one of the original cemeteries in Topeka. Her parents, uncles and aunts were all right together. Later my parents were buried in a new section of the cemetery where you had to climb a small hill but was near a bell tower. As years went by the flowers became plastic flowers. After I was married we went to several cemeteries as my husbands family had lived in Valley Falls, Kansas and we had two cemeteries there. My mother-in-law would pick the buds on her peony bushes and put them in the refrigerator and take them to the cemetery as she did not like plastic flowers. My neighbor still does that and takes them down to Missouri on Memorial Day so it is still being done. One year on Memorial Day weekend our oldest daughter was married. That was really special and we had to pay extra to the florist because of the holiday. It was well worth it.