Mike is our family “conscience”. He started a tradition when he visits graves that I have try to carry on whenever I go to a cemetery. He tries to leave coins (quarters, pennys, or, if he has them, dollar coins) on gravestones. He calls them “coins from heaven”. And the intent is that kids find them when they visit the graves (normally not a very exciting outing for a young child)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
My belated thanks to all of you who served in our armed forces on this Veteran’s Day.\nThe older I get, the more I appreciate your service to our country. My thanks.<\/p>\n
I visited the cemetaries yesterday, on Veteran’s Day. I missed doing it for All Saints\/All Souls Day.\nOur skies were overcast all day, though our trees are still incredibly colorful. \n(I realize why I like being outside so much more on the bright autumn Chicago-area days – \nthe whole landscape is full of colors! Winter has a predominence of white, spring and summer is mainly green.\nBut in the fall – nature just splashes whole swatches of yellows and oranges and reds and browns and \ngreens and blues. It reminds me of something Danny Kaye once said: “Life is a big canvas. Splash \nall the paint on it you can.”)<\/p>\n
I usually arm myself with a putty knife and small stiff paintbrush for trimming the gravestones, \nas well as some seasonal artifical decorations (I’m finding our weather is too rough on real plantings.)<\/p>\n
My first stop, after Church was Terry’s Mom’s grave, right nearby in Evergreen Park,\nwith a short prayer for family health.<\/p>\n
Then a search for FLAGS!! All the stores have Christmas – not even much in the way of \nThanksgiving decorations now. It took me 4 stops before I could find any.\nThen to the graves a friend’s parents’ grave, in the cemetary just east of Mom and Dad’s, \nadjacent to the funeral home where Uncle Frank\/Aunt Rosemary\/Cathy and I believe Uncle Paul \nhad wakes\/memorial services. This cemetary also has a Jewish cemetary adjacent, and I remember \nDad telling a story of cutting through one (this one) to get to the fishing spots. Seems \nthat when I do I stop here, I always find “wild” life – once a red-tailed hawk. Another time a fox. \nAnd a pair of blue jays. And this time a pair of “flickers” (kinda like like woodpeckers). \nSo it’s a park-like place. But I was dismayed to find that someone had stolen a pair of brass \n(bronze?) vases that were part of the stones (the vases were set into the stone, unexposed, \nand could be turned upright if desired. But someone unscrewed them and took them. Scrape?? \nSad. So sad. So I left a couple bunches of fall flowers to hide the holes, and a flag, and \nplayed TAPS and Amazing Grace on the harmonica. (Both I taught to mysef. Taps is easy. \nBut my harmonica is a 10 hole version, so I can’t play all the notes for Amazing Grace.<\/p>\n
Then on the Grandma & Grandpa Vrtis (Dad’s parents), and Aunt Fran & Uncle Ray (my godparents) \nand Sister Michael Anne (an acquaintance of Rosemarie Mack, who worked near us at Little Company \nOf Mary Hospital. Sister was there when Jeremy, Jenny and Joy were born, and would often join us \nat family celebrations.) All those graves are close together. (I noted that NOBODY messes with \nthe nun’s graves….the flower I left in summer was still there, though all the other decorations \nhad been removed in late October.) I left more flowers for everyone, and played “Michael Row \nThe Boat Ashore”. (And thought that the second verse “Sister help to trim the sail…” made \nit even more appropriate.)<\/p>\n
Then to Uncle Frank’s\/Aunt Rosemary’s\/Cathy Pater’s, all near Mom & Dad’s. Placed small batches \nof flowers, and a flag (again TAPS) and played “Oh Shenandoah” thinking of the cottage and the \nmemories that they helped build there.<\/p>\n
Then Mom & Dad’s. More flowers. And a flag. And TAPS. And prayers. I wish Mom & Dad’s site \nwas more scenic, but it’s the most barren. And there are “herds” of wild geese all around. \nMaking kneeling and cleaning up even dirtier. I did play, “He’s Got The Whole World In His \nHands” there. And tipped my cowboy hat once for Chuck, like he always reminds me too. And \neven if it’s not the nicest site, it’s because of them that I’ve started visiting graves more often.<\/p>\n
Then to Aunt Rosaleen’ and Uncle Al’s in Holy Sepalcur (sp). Boy, I hadn’t been there since Easter.\nHad a lot of trimmming to do. I played Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” here. (All of these songs were \nfilled with bad notes….I sure need to practice.) I sure miss playing games with Aunt Rosaleen. \nAnd Dad always valued Uncle Al’s help and advice at the cottage.<\/p>\n
Then to Tom Beemster’s stone nearby. Again, a flag, and TAPS. The other song was “Skip To My \nLou”!!!!! (Sorry Tom, but that was the only one left!!! I can here him muttering now – \n“Mom Veras gets ‘Ode To Joy” and I get ‘Skip To My Lou’!”) I sure miss playing games with you too Tom! <\/p>\n
I remember going to Michael Morgan’s wake (Ray and Debbie’s son), and listening to all of the \nmusic his friends chose to play as background music. And before my computer crashed, \nI recorded some of my favorite music too, so I had those songs along for the ride.<\/p> \n
There’s more I would have liked to write, but I’m out of time.<\/p>\n
Wish I could have vistied a lot more graves yesterday, but sometimes it’s good just to be \ngrateful for all the people in my life – INSIDE myself.<\/p>\n
My thanks again to all the vets out there.<\/p>\n
Thoughts & prayers,<\\b><\/p>\n
Mike<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike is our family “conscience”. He started a tradition when he visits graves that I have try to carry on whenever I go to a cemetery. He tries to leave coins (quarters, pennys, or, if he has them, dollar coins) on gravestones. He calls them “coins from heaven”. And the intent is that kids find … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mailman-mike"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrtisworks.com\/mythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}