The last weekend of summer 2005 was a lot like the last weekend of summer 2004. Once again, I spent it doing something that I would have preferred, in the best of all possible worlds, not doing.
It was last year on September 17th that my Mom passed away after a six year long battle with Ovarian Cancer. That weekend I traveled to New Jersey and spent the weekend helping my Dad plan a funeral. It is a weekend I won’t forget as long as I live. The last day of summer that year was spent at her funeral in New Jersey and burial in her hometown of Olyphant, Pennsylvania. I remember at the time feeling mostly numb and I think in a lot of ways, its something that hasn’t seemed completely real. The one thing that made it bearable was having Kellie by my side during those days.
This weekend, Kellie and I traveled back to Olyphant to visit my Mom’s graveside and spent some time with family. It wasn’t the first time that we’d been back there — we took a trip up the Saturday before Mother’s Day in May to plant some flowers and clean things up a little bit, but that was a day trip and we deliberately didn’t let anyone know we were going up there. At the time, I just wanted to go there.
The cemetery where my Mom is buried is an old family cemetery that I had visited many times when I was younger. My Mom’s parents are buried there, as are my Great-grandparents on both sides of my Mom’s family and many other relatives. It is a typical old Catholic cemetery in Pennsylvania. There is maintenance and so-called “perpetual care” but its nowhere near as good as at most of the larger cemeteries I’ve been to. We spent a lot of time pulling weeds, cutting back grass, and, in the case of one of my Great Uncles, removing dead grass that was completely covering the grave marker. I can see myself going back there in the spring with better equipment and trying to fix the site up even more than we were able to this time.
It was good to be there this weekend. Honestly, I can’t think of anywhere else I would’ve rather been.
There was only one disappointment —- we had planned to go to Mass at Holy Ghost Church in Olyphant; which is the church where my parents and grandparents were married and the church where my Mom had been baptized, had First Communion, and Confirmation. Unfortunately, we found out that Holy Ghost was closed for the summer and that the Saturday mass was being conducted at St. Michael’s, about two blocks away, to save money. The ironic thing about this is that when my Mom lived in Olyphant there were three Catholic Churches — the Slovak parish (Holy Ghost), the Irish parish (St. Patrick’s), and the Polish parish (St. Michael’s) — in those days, the ethnic groups didn’t mix at all. Now, they have to.
Kellie and I arrived home at about 3:30 to a very enthusiastic puppy.
