Dead Relatives Day

Happy Memorial Day everyone - although come to think of it - perhaps you are not supposed to be happy on Memorial Day. Given the nature of the holiday I would suppose somber, sober, and reverential ought to trump happy as the emotion of the day.

But that is not the AMERICAN way. No sirree. In the good ol' US of A we celebrate our fallen heroes the way THEY would like to celebrate - had they not had the misfortune of waking-up dead on some battlefield - by firing up the BBQ, consuming copious amounts of alcohol, and (in sunny climes, at least) ogling hotties in swimwear.

At least that's the way it works in families with members under the age of 65. Unfortunately, in my family in Juneau, I am the only one under that benchmark age and therefore we default to the somber, sober, and reverential approach.

Indeed, we celebrate the holiday one day early to avoid the crowds at Evergreen Cemetery. Last night we had a spartan pot roast dinner and immediately thereafter my sister Linda and I packed my jeep with potted flowers and gardening implements and headed to town for the annual visit with the dead relatives.

There are a number of them: Grandma and Grandpa Newman, Linda's late husband Russ, and Aunt Emilie's daughter Janis are all planted together near the Gross Mausoleum. My dad's father, Eli, and sister, Ingaborg, share a condominium headstone on the other side of the road that bisects the cemetery. The only one absent is Uncle Bud who opted to have his ashes buried and a big aluminum headstone erected down at the hunting cabin on Buck Island. Just to piss-off and inconvenience the Forest Service on whose land the cabin is situated, I'm sure.

But I digress. Back at Evergreen Cemetery headstones were scraped and brushed and holes dug to hold the potted plants. Respects were paid and we motored back to my folks' place.

This ritual has gone on for at least the last 35 years - since Grandpa Newman died in 1974. Grandma died the following year and before she passed made my mom promise that we would put flowers on their graves every Memorial Day - or she would come back and haunt us. Mom has been very diligent about keeping her word.