Remembering Mom: Her Trips to the Cemetery

There was no pain that Mom carried in her heart greater than the pain of losing David, her youngest child. He was born in early December 1964 and died the next March at three-and-a-half months old. 

I was seven when David died. Mom and Dad let us view his body lying in state, which is the most vivid image of David that I retain, but we weren't allowed to go to his funeral. He spent so little time at home that we never got to know or play with him. 

More vivid than the image of David in his coffin are the images of the many times Mom walked across the uneven ground of Lullaby Land to put flowers on his grave. Her regular trips to the cemetery began on her birthday in 1965. Her birthday, and David's birthday and date of death, became ritualistic for her and Dad to visit David's grave. In 1993, she added Dad's dates of birth and death, and we children became her support system accompanying her to our brother's grave and our father's crypt. 

Remembering Mom: Her First Mother's Day in Heaven

David was born in December of 1964 and died in March of 1965 at three-and-a-half months old. I cannot imagine how much pain Mom must have felt that first Mother's Day without him. She never lost the grief of losing him. Some of my most vivid memories of Mom are walking with her over the uneven ground in Lullaby Land so she could place flowers on his grave. 

At first, she would go on the anniversaries of his birth and death, plus Memorial Day, which is really close to her birthday. Dad honored and adopted the tradition until his death in 1992.