The “piney roses” also called peonies, are blooming now, ushering in Memorial Day.

We called it “Decoration Day,” and it was a special time to us.  Grandma’s “graveyard rose” was always in full bloom at this time also. It was an heirloom rose, brought from Grandma O’Dell’s home place and transplanted in these Clay County hills. It was a large, delicate rose, with a sweet fragrance, and we added it to our floral offerings contained in a glass Mason jar and placed on the graves of our loved ones.

It has been a ritual here in the hills to gather together and go to our family cemeteries to clean off the graves and decorate them with fresh flowers.  It was also a family reunion. A picnic basket would be packed, a blanket to spread on the ground for the little ones and babies, and a jug of lemonade would be added. It was a time of reminiscing about loved ones that had departed; a precious time to show love and support to family members.

I remember our annual trek to Mom’s family cemetery that we made faithfully each year. We had to park the car where the road ended, and take a footpath down the ridge through the woods to where the point ended. It was a beautiful pilgrimage. The mountain laurel would be blooming, and we children would pick branches of it to put on the graves. The path wound through deep woods, tall trees and moss covered rocks. Ferns and wild roses, pink and delicate, bordered the path, and it was always cool and quiet there.

The cemetery itself was a peaceful place, moss-covered and shaded by the tall trees that surrounded it. Wind sighed through the pine trees, and the birds sang constantly. It was never a morbid place to me, but a happy place to gather with relatives and pay our respects to our kinfolk who were gone. I have such good memories of the multitude of cousins that played together at that time.  Sadly, many of the cousins are now gone, with one of our oldest cousins, Ginny, (Uncle Grover’s daughter) passing away last week at the age of 92.

We always gathered again on Father’s Day, the whole tribe of us, to renew old ties, admire new babies, and have a good day of love and fellowship together.  I remember the big basket dinners that “Big Eva” used to fix, Aunt Ruby’s applesauce cake, the fried chicken, fancy pies, and jugs of real lemonade that the aunts used to bring. (There were eleven siblings, and they all had large families.  No wonder we had scores of cousins!) At that time, everyone came. It was a glorious time!

The graves were not really sad. There was a grandmother that we never knew, who died at 52, when my own mother was eleven years old. To me, she was a “tale that was told” but to her children she was a sad memory. There were good memories of “Grandpa Hooge”—I remember him as a saintly old man with white hair, and a silky, white beard. My recollections center around a little, log cabin, where he lived alone the last few years of his life. I have a very faint memory of his funeral, where the cousins were all weeping. There were a few graves of tiny babies, and we felt sad as we decorated them.

I am thankful for memories, for they are a gift from God that death cannot destroy.  This is such a “remembering” time of year. Some of the memories are sad, some are happy, but all of them combined have helped mold us into the kind of people that we are, and are irreplaceable.

The cold May rains are still falling in our hills, turning the greenness to a deeper emerald. The early crops flourish with the life-giving moisture, and the shrubs and flowers bloom lavishly. The bright orange gleam of the honeysuckle bush (wild azalea) makes a vivid splash of color on the hillsides, while the true honeysuckle vine produces its creamy white and pale yellow blossoms with its heart-wrenching fragrance.

The wild white water honeysuckle was blooming on the banks of Big Laurel Creek where our family was enjoying a day of swimming and picnicking. Someone came to tell us that a boy we all loved had been killed in Korea.  I loved him especially. He was 18 years old, and was almost ready to come home. It was May 30, 1953.

DECORATION DAY

Author Unknown

We called it Decoration Day

When I was just a kid

And up ‘til now, I never knew

Exactly why we did.

I always thought that it referred

To stripes that soldiers earned

Or stars and bars for officers,

But that’s not what I learned.

I googled it to double-check

And found out I was wrong.

The “decorations” were for graves

And have been all along.

For each serviceman who fought

And lost his life in sacrifice,

Just a marker on his resting place

Would simply not suffice.

So as tribute and remembrance,

With a flag or a bouquet,

We should beautify a soldier’s grave

On Decoration Day.

No matter what you call it,

When our flag is flown half-mast,

Take a moment for reflection

On our soldiers who have passed.