"Don't Rush the Funeral."

🚶🏻‍♀️I often walk to the cemetery.

“Don’t rush the funeral.”
Two people told me this after Jason died.

I took their advice.
Week One after Jason died felt too soon.
Week Two, Coleman and I went to Yosemite National Park for a trip that had been planned for months.
Week Three became the perfect weekend for the funeral.

It gave me time to think and to remember and to feel Jason near me.
It gave me time to plan the services, the speakers, the music.

The local cemetery is tiny.
It’s within walking distance of our house.
I walked around it with my family members, holding a map of the available plots.
I looked at the names on the neighboring headstones.
Elsie. Eunice. That was it. Those were his people. I just knew it.
I chose the plot between them.
I knew that Jason had already introduced himself and made friends.

My neighbor Kristy lost her little boy Luke in a drowning accident years ago.
He is buried at this same cemetery.
Kristy and her husband have ten-year-old twin girls who are friends with Coleman.
They often visit Luke as a family.

The week after Jason died, I asked Kristy if she and the girls would take us to the cemetery.
To learn the ropes. To see how it’s done. To experience it with the masters.

The girls told Coleman to bring his scooter.
We started the mile walk as the kids scootered ahead.
The girls taught Coleman to climb and hide in the tree by the bench.
They taught Coleman to jump up high on top of the tower while Mom takes a picture .
We traveled up the small hill to the cemetery.
They taught Coleman to run to Luke’s grave to check it out.
They taught him to race to the statue of the angel.
They darted from grave to grave, fixing the flowers that had fallen over and inspecting the names etched in stone.

Kristy told me stories of the cemetery, the history of it. 
Her son Tate planted the trees around the perimeter for his Eagle Scout project.
She taught me about cleaning days twice a year and a special luminary ceremony at Christmastime.

We showed them where Jason would be buried. Right by Elsie and Eunice.
Then we made our way home.

Kristy and the girls taught us how to do the cemetery. It was a place of love and hope and remembering. It was even a place to play.

We invited Jason’s parents to come visit the cemetery a few days later.
Then we did the same thing for my family.
This time Coleman was in charge.
He showed them the tree, the bench, the water towers.
He showed them Luke’s grave and the angel statue.
The cousins propped up flowers that had fallen over as they ran through the rows of headstones.
They met Elsie and Eunice and learned where Jason would be buried.

By the time the funeral rolled around, we had been to the cemetery half a dozen times.
We knew this place. We knew the people there.
Kristy and the girls taught us how to do the cemetery.

I’m glad we didn’t rush the funeral.
💙✊🏻