With One Foot in the Past

Decoration Day dawned as lovely and serene as only a May day in Oklahoma can. Goshen Cemetery basked beneath an early morning sun. Droplets of dew sparkled like emeralds and rubies on freshly cut grass. Birds sang in ancient cedars, undisturbed by groups of people moving quietly over the cemetery with their bouquets of flowers.

A tradition in my family for at least a hundred years, Decoration Day at Goshen always took my thoughts back to how it might have looked to those early day settlers: women in long dresses and bonnets, men carrying their hats which respect demanded they remove, walking quietly among the headstones.

Instead of rows of cars outside the cemetery fence, horses stood, switching flies while they waited, hitched to family wagons. These wagons carried not only people and homemade flowers, but tubs covered with dish towels. Under those towels nestled fried chicken, biscuits, boiled eggs, and fruit pies. At noon, families would take this food to the creek below the cemetery, spread out quilts or lunch cloths, and share food and conversation. The custom of eating the noon meal at the cemetery did not diminish the sacredness of the day; rather, it was a necessity. Many people traveled miles to get to Goshen and horses and wagons were a lot slower than today’s transportation. Sometimes, the trip took hours. Thus, it was impossible to get back home by lunch time. — The Cemetery Club by Blanche Day Manos and Barbara Burgess.

Although this was an excerpt from Barbara’s and my book, The Cemetery Club, it was the scene yesterday at Caney Cemetery. A Southern tradition that has existed in my family for more than a hundred years, yesterday, Matt and I made the pilgrimage back to Caney to place flowers on the graves of family members, six generations of them.

Although this custom is criticized by some and misunderstood, let me say that I think it is a good one. We know, of course, that the ones we loved are not beneath the ground. They are with God. But, once they walked among us; they were a part of us and we carry them in our hearts. Placing flowers is simply an expression of respect and acknowledgment that their lives meant a great deal to a lot of people. It is a way of keeping them with us, if only in memory.

Decoration Day is a connection with the past and it is a long one, stretching back to pre-Civil War Days. One woman whose body rests at Caney was born before the Revolutionary War. She came to Indian Territory along the infamous Trail of Tears.

So, yesterday, even though I appeared to be in the here and now, actually, one foot was in yesterday. Sometimes it is good to remember.