Sundays in my youth were filled with attending Mass, pancakes
at Perkins, and visiting Calvary Cemetery, which we often called cavalry, hoping someone would save us
from visiting the ancestors.
Mass was followed by breakfast with strawberry syrup and
Reddi Whip cream draping over top a stack of fluffy pancakes, then we marched on
to the cemetery. We might stop at the
local floral shop for cut flowers, bring out the plastic daisies if winter was
upon us, or reach for the bucket in the back seat that contained zinnias cut
from my father’s garden.
Whlie most might consider Mass prayer enough, the time spent
at graveside carried more meaning for my parents. They mourned the passing of their mothers,
Stella Rafaella, while my grandfathers remained alive. Dad would stop at the markers of second
cousins we were expected to recall, or he would stoop down and cut grass with
his handy shearers, creating a perfect green frame around engraved granite.
At Calvary, the graves of babies were separate from the
adults, and that was where my baby brother, David, was buried, having died two
days after his birth. Following the obligatory adult grave prayers, we trudged
towards the other side of the cemetery.
My mother and father could walk a straight line to David’s plot, while
the rest of us were always uncertain which way to turn. A parent always knows the way to their lost
children.
In these moments, the surrounding energy shifted. The snowflakes
might turn larger, the breeze take on an extra chill, or the sun begin to feel
as if it might scorch the earth. The air
was heavier, and weight of the sadness grew. My mother would begin the family
prayer, “Please Little David, watch over us and help us to be a good, kind and
loving family.” To this day, my mother,
in her dementia, knows the words and meaning of that prayer.
The cemetery practice continued long after we were grown. Occasionally,
when I was visiting, Mass and breakfast were followed by a short drive to the
cemetery, and a casual stroll through the ancestral lines. I understand now, the practice had its roots
in our Italian heritage, as well as our Catholicism, but ten-year-olds see only
Friday the 13th in
cemeteries until they experience their own loss.
Thus, when my first husband Devin died, and we chose to have
his remains scattered across the Pacific Ocean, my mother’s first question was,
“Where will (our son) Davis go to be “with” his father?” I pointed to the vast body of water called
the Pacific that lay in front of me.
Devin’s choice was to be a part of water and not land, simply put.
But as my son grew older, I found it challenging to return
to Oregon, or the Pacific, for him to be “with” his father. During that time,
we had also begun participating in the Leukemia Society’s Light the Night, an annual
fundraiser walk, where, with balloons in hand, we strolled through 2.5 miles of
downtown, taking in the sights, meditating on the good in our life.
The first few years we were joined by caring neighbors,
family and friends. And then, either we
stopped asking, or they stopped attending.
Or both. The night belonged to
us, and to our memory of Devin, and to Davis’ honoring of his father.
We walked Light the Night for twelve years. The very first
Light the Night ironically had been held during the night of Devin’s admittance
for his bone marrow transplant. For
twelve years following that first LTN and Devin’s death, Davis and I walked.
LTN took the place of our cemetery, and while at a cemetery,
focus is on the ground, during LTN, we focused on what was rising, figuratively
the balloons, literally life and the lifting up of one another.
The Cincinnati chapter of LLS moved the date for the walk this
year to October and Davis found himself in a quandary over participation. He
had promised a friend, one who was returning from a concussion, that he would
watch her final soccer match as a high school player. Then, I informed him that
evening coincided with the LTN.
A day later, he offered that it would be my decision, but he
felt his friends had seen him through a few tough times as of late, and he
wanted to support them. (Apparently, he
had forgotten about all our tough times, but I’ll remind him of that later!).
I told him, one of the lessons we learn from a loved one’s
death is how to “choose life”, and though he is NOT choosing his mother, I
honor his choice of “life”.
I contemplated asking friends, relatives, but knew myself
well enough to walk this one alone. Another
lesson we take from death is letting go, and this time, it is not about letting
Devin go, but letting go of our senior-in-high school son, ironically just
electronically accepted into the school of choice, University of Oregon.
Many years after Devin’s death and I still hear my mother’s
voice asking, “Where will Davis go to “visit” with his father? I better understand
her graveside recitation over Little David’s marker, the visits she made
religiously, and the grass my father tended with care.
And I think back to each Sunday, when my parents let Little David go, the life that could
have, would have, should have been. The life they didn’t get to raise, and I am
grateful God granted me motherhood and that Davis and I have had seventeen aggravatingly
beautiful years together. He has most assuredly answered my mother’s question
by embarking on his own quest.
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