When my grandma was healthy and mobile she went on every senior citizen tour that my home town offered. She went to Olivera Street, many museums, Branson, MO, the tulip festival, China, and the list goes on and on. When the new season catalog for parks and rec would come out, my grandma would plan her life around those trips.
One of the tours she went on was a cemetary tour. The seniors visited all of the mortuaries and cemetaries in the greater los Angeles area. Morbid, I know. While on the tour she bought herself a little burial package for her cremated remains in the rose garden at Hollywood Forever. Which was very fitting because she loved roses. I can only guess she also wanted to be buried among good company like Cecil B. DeMille, and a few of the rascal kids, Joey Ramone from the Ramones, and Victor Flemming.
It was a very nice ceremony.
I have a simple parenting philosophy: prepare in advance and tell them nothing that isn’t necessary. This philosophy only works when both parts are used together. I didn’t prepare my kids very well for the funeral.
Mike: Where is GG?
Me: She’s in that box.
Mike: WHAT??!!! How did she fit in their??
Me: She was cremated.
Mike: Awesome! Why didn’t we get to see that part?
At this point I should have tried to fill in the other kids, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to think about it.
After the remembrance we buried her ashes and then planted a beautiful rose over her.
Jacob: What are they doing?
Me: Burying GG.
Jacob: That’s a little tiny hole.
Me: I know, but remember she’s with Jesus, she doesn’t need her body now.
Jacob: Why can’t I see her legs? WHERE ARE GG’s LEGS???
at this point he tries to maneuver closer, to get a better look.
Jacob: Where are her arms then?
And then I give up, and hand him over to Dave.
Me: I would never chose to have my ashes placed under anything living.
My sister: Why?
Me: What if that rose dies, you know what everyone will think.
My sister: I should come water it and fertilize it, you know, make sure it grows and all.
*******
My grandma has this photograph hanging in her hallway right when you walk in the house. It’s a large picture, maybe an 11″x13” in a large gaudy Victorian frame. It’s hung rather low on the wall to make room for some world war II propaganda that she has hanging on the wall, in case anyone might forget to conserve tin foil or pray for our nation before bed. I’m not quite sure who is in the photograph, but I’m drawn to it every time I walk in the door.
It’s a photograph of someone dead, in a casket, laid out in the living room with all their kids standing around them. It’s a little bit like this:
I always wonder who decided to organize the taking of the picture. Was it something planned beforehand? “Well grandpa’s dead and everyone will be here, we should take a family picture. Might as well include grandpa in it.” Or was it a spur of the moment thing? “Everyone looks so nice in their Sunday best, we should take a picture. Hurry! Gather around grandpa!”
I haven’t really thought about that picture in a long time, because really, who thinks about taking pictures of dead people.
That is until the funeral. I wished I had brought my camera so that I could have taken a nice photo of the rose, while it is still beautiful and blooming. And that must be how it starts. We are all just one shot away from a morbidly funny photo. And then yesterday I logged onto facebook and my mom had posted this:
Why just take a picture of the rose. “Hurry Grandpa, come get in the picture too!”
And I couldn’t stop laughing.
Overactiveovaries 
The past few months I have been going through photos and putting names on the back while people are still here to tell me who they are. I keep finding tons of grave stones and there is one of my great-grandmother laying where her grave is now. I laughed so hard when i read on the back saying I should be burred here and I will be saying hi from above. she said please make sure I am in the right spot. I could not believe my eyes when i saw it. Just a little funny ha ha 🙂 She used to do that when when we would put flowers on my great grandfathers grave but to find the picture it made me laugh even more.
Elaina, that’s HILARIOUS!!!!
you know it really hurts laugh seltzer slushy out your nose.
haha, sorry 🙂
I want to laugh but I just end up crying
You’re so hard to please…
Just so you know that is a picture of mom’s dad. I tried to talk her out of hanging it but she said “But that’s my dad in the living room”
‘cuz that’s how I want to remember my dad… 🙂
Obviously you haven’t seen any of the funeral books we have here from Bill’s relatives. They took a picture of every dead person laying in their coffin & then kept them in a book with the signatures of the people who visited! Although I never understood or really thougth it was a good idea – As you can guess, it was my responsibility to do that for his mom & dad since she wasn’t around to do so. I didn’t have anyone else get in the picture though!
I hope that Bill doesn’t expect me to carry on that tradition. Actually, I think as first-daughter-in-law, Dana gets that privilege…
I love the “sample” picture you got. I don’t remember the one in your grandma’s house as being _quite_ the same. I do like the tag though. 😉
When my Aunt died I promised my dear son that he could put flowers on her grave. Two months later when we finally went to my Aunt’s grave site in Glendora, the same dear son had a meltdown because we didn’t have time to get the flowers to put on the grave. Turns out her ashes were put in a mausoleum with only one tiny vase with hardly any room for even one flower.