On the birthday anniversary of my recently deceased Mother
in July, I went to her gravesite in Rochester Hills, Michigan at the Guardian
Angels cemetery. When I went, I was not
exactly sure why I wanted or needed to go.
Sure, I’m a person who believes in the afterlife, but I’m also a
pragmatist, and not much of a sentimentalist.
I think: “Since my Mom’s current life is as a soul in the afterlife, the
body she left behind is no more than an empty container… it’s not the real
her. I can’t see that body anyway. It’s in a grave. Also, I can remember her from anywhere on the
planet, and if spirits can hear humans, then she can hear me from
anywhere. So I was not really sure why I
went.
When I stood over her grave (and the grave of my departed
father and my brother Jim), I thought, unsentimentally: “Hmm, the grass above their graves is pretty
dry, sparse and has weeds. I might pull
the weeds. But what would that matter to
any humans on this earth? Would that
really matter to my Mom, Dad, and Jim?
That seems so incidental. It
affects nothing. Very few if any family
members come here. If I did care for the
grass, would I be doing it so that the rare visitors would have a better
experience? Doesn’t it seem that the
same minutes could be better spent doing something for my own immediate family
members, who are still alive?”
While I was thinking about that, a Chrysler Minivan pulled
up several tens of yards away, and an old short man walked out and over to a
six foot tall black curved-top marble monument with some Greek name on it. He made the sign of the cross on himself,
indicating to me that he was either Catholic or Orthodox. I wondered what he thought as he motioned
that hand pattern. Did it help him in
some way? Did it help his dead relative
in some way? Did it help God in some
way? It seemed not valuable. (I’m being difficult in this posting to set
up a contrast. Of course I see value in
it, but not in the way that most people define value… it’s a confirmation of my
own beliefs to me and to my God)...
