Friday, April 17, 2009

Off to the Cemetery Tra la, Tra la!

I went to the cemetery on Easter Sunday to visit my parents' grave. Now stay with me this is not maudlin! Big day for cemeteries! Flowers, balloons, little kids running around in their Easter best.I saw no tears.

I spoke with my sister upon returning home. We have had this conversation many times. You see, there are only three spaces in the cemetery plot. What were my parents thinking?One of us has to go first.It all came down to rummaging through family documents looking for the deed to the family plot; at least one of us would know where it was and inform the kids.You cannot be buried without an official stamped deed. Did you know that? You just cannot point and say, “Well that one is mine. After all my parents are there you idiot!”

Just what you want to read about, right?When mom died in 2000, I gathered all of the family documents and categorized them by year.I sat there for hours looking through my grandparents' citizenship papers, baptismal papers, etc and then I found something that, immediately upon seeing, brought back a childhood incident concerning my dad that has been totally out of recall for more than fifty years.My dad’s Anniversary is April 19. He will be gone almost forty years! Of course, I thought that finding this paper was a sign from the celestial heavens. I figured after all of these years he’s made it to that Big Tent in the sky and is thus free to make contact with us mere earthlings.

Dad wants his due; at least it is comforting for me to believe that.I have often written about Mom, though there is far more to write, but have seldom touched on Dad.The found item was a commendation from the then Mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia to my father for being a Deputy Sector Commander in the Civil Service of the City in The Air Warden Service. It was not an uncommon document. Daddy had been an Air Raid Warden from 1942 to 1945. Air Raid Warden’s were responsible for gathering people during the war in case there was a security threat, direct them to the air raid shelters and provide for the safety of the elderly and infirm and myriad other things.

The document was simply the trigger to my reliving this incident about my dad, which I remember as if it were yesterday. I am trying to get it down on paper and share it next week, the week of his anniversary.I hope that you will join me.

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