Finding my Father
Twelve months before my Father died he paid to have his parents grave tidied up and the head stone refurbished. I don’t suppose he knew he would be soon ready to go to his last resting place. However, things didn’t work out exactly as he had planned.
My brother was in charge of all the funeral arrangements and his burial site, I trusted him and for some time imagined my father resting peacefully with his ancestors. I am not one for visiting cemetries unless I have to attend a funeral or am doing some genealogy research, this happens infrequently however. Although in the last twelve months I have been to more funerals than in the last ten years. One day Jamie, and my cousin and I decided to go and visit father’s grave.
We found the gravesite with the name of my father’s parents and long gone brothers and sisters.
Imagine our consternation when we saw no mention of my father.
We decided the best option was to split up and search for him, well his resting place anyway. Jamie and my cousin began searching all the headstones in the Baptist section. I walked across to the Methodist section where my mother’s ashes had been interred with her parents. No there was no father there. Then I began walking back, enjoying the peace and quiet and noting how some graves had been left bare and desolate for years, some had those awful plastic flowers on them and yet others had been tended often with tender loving care.
I was quite enjoying walking past all the graves beginning with the letter B and reading the headstones when I received a call on my Mobile phone.
‘Come back, we have found your father’, I hurried back close to where I had left Jamie. As I ran I noticed some people looking at me as though running was very out of place in a cemetry.
Instead of being buried with his parents my father’s ashes had been placed with another part of our family. A part that we had long ago lost contact with. As the three of us stood and gazed at the spot we were very impressed. The grave was under a huge tree with lots of shade for protection during our hot summers. It was only a few metres away from my father’s family and my mother’s grave was close by. I could imagine him walking around and visiting during the long nights.
I don't suppose the current occupant is really bothered, although I do wonder what the owners of this grave think when they visit and see a person with the same name as theirs yet a stranger buried in their family plot.
Glenni
My brother was in charge of all the funeral arrangements and his burial site, I trusted him and for some time imagined my father resting peacefully with his ancestors. I am not one for visiting cemetries unless I have to attend a funeral or am doing some genealogy research, this happens infrequently however. Although in the last twelve months I have been to more funerals than in the last ten years. One day Jamie, and my cousin and I decided to go and visit father’s grave.
We found the gravesite with the name of my father’s parents and long gone brothers and sisters.
Imagine our consternation when we saw no mention of my father.
We decided the best option was to split up and search for him, well his resting place anyway. Jamie and my cousin began searching all the headstones in the Baptist section. I walked across to the Methodist section where my mother’s ashes had been interred with her parents. No there was no father there. Then I began walking back, enjoying the peace and quiet and noting how some graves had been left bare and desolate for years, some had those awful plastic flowers on them and yet others had been tended often with tender loving care.
I was quite enjoying walking past all the graves beginning with the letter B and reading the headstones when I received a call on my Mobile phone.
‘Come back, we have found your father’, I hurried back close to where I had left Jamie. As I ran I noticed some people looking at me as though running was very out of place in a cemetry.
Instead of being buried with his parents my father’s ashes had been placed with another part of our family. A part that we had long ago lost contact with. As the three of us stood and gazed at the spot we were very impressed. The grave was under a huge tree with lots of shade for protection during our hot summers. It was only a few metres away from my father’s family and my mother’s grave was close by. I could imagine him walking around and visiting during the long nights.
I don't suppose the current occupant is really bothered, although I do wonder what the owners of this grave think when they visit and see a person with the same name as theirs yet a stranger buried in their family plot.
Glenni