Up There (at the Cemetery) Again????

     When visiting a cemetery, it isn't difficult to find the grave sites of children. They are among those with flowers, balloons, lights, seasonal decorations and even toys surrounding the stones. All of the sites pictured here have been in place for at least a couple of years, yet they are still visited regularly. It begs the question of "How can these families keep grieving so deeply?"
          The answer, however, is not rooted only in grief, but also by identity. Parents and grandparents do not stop being "mom or dad" or "grandma or grandpa" when a child is no longer living. They continue in those roles for years, probably until they themselves die.
           I once read a story about a young man who visited his mother's grave from time to time. Each time, a nearby grave was brightly decorated with flowers and balloons. It was the grave of a child. As time went by, he found himself at the cemetery once or twice a year, because members of his family had grown old and passed on. Always, the little stone was freshly decorated. Finally, when he himself was an old man, he found that the little stone at the cemetery was not decorated. Curious, he walked over the the plot and saw that the child's mother had died at the age of 97. It was obviously she who had tended to her child for all those years.
Decorating at the cemetery is not the only way we continue to be the child's family, however. I had an uncle who died around the age of forty. My father kept many pictures of his brother, and of him and his brother together. My aunts talked of him, and my grandmother, particularly, told of how he entertained children by giving them "horsie" rides, reciting rhymes, and singing songs. My memories of him were very clear. Only recently did I discover that he had died before I was two years old! There was no way I actually remembered him in as many settings as I believed, and yet I have a clear picture of who he was and the things he did within the family.
          When a child dies, parents do not stop being the child's parents, and grandparents do not stop being the child's grandparents. For most of us, we continue to be caregivers, not of the child, but of all that keeps the memories of the child going on. That child will live in memory as long as the last person who knew him or her lives. So, continuing the memory whenever appropriate means that, at least in spirit, the child lives on. We are being responsible parents.