Memorial

[mrissa]

Every year for Memorial Day I get a little bag of M&Ms, and I eat them slowly.

My great-grandma Lingen used to send me letters at college and enclose $1 "for a treat." We both knew that what she really meant was "for M&Ms." They were her favorite. She was not always an easy person to be around, but you could almost always jolly her up if you brought her M&Ms: partly because she liked them, and partly because you had paid attention and remembered what she liked. In her last year or two, she was diabetic and couldn't have more than one or two, but she wanted to make sure I had some to enjoy anyway.

My Gran (Grandpa's mother) kept a covered dish of M&Ms on the desk in her dining room. She had M&Ms, mixed nuts, and old-fashioned gumdrops every time we got there. Sometimes also chocolate-covered peanuts, but always the basic three, and I don't like gumdrops. I remember that when they came out with red M&Ms, it was startling to see them at Gran's, because it was a change in one of the changeless things in life.

We aren't grave people, my family. From the time I was tiny, I knew that if something happened to me or my parents or my grandparents, we would be cremated and the ashes would be scattered (although my grandpa had a standing joke about large urns as "family burial plots"). Last year when markgritter's grandmother died, she was cremated. I believe the family planted a tree for her on the grounds of the school she loved. When we remember her, we do it with purple flowers around the house, with contributions to research the disease that took her from us.

What do you do in memory of people in your life? When do you do it?

ETA: I didn't mean in the immediate aftermath of their deaths, although if you want to tell me that, that's fine, too; funerary customs are interesting. What I meant is in your life in the months and years after your loved ones die.

Comments

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

My dad was not really big into sweets. About once every 6 months he would eat a Milky Way, if he was in the mood.

However, he loved and adored Apple Pie. So instead of cake for his birthday we would make apple pie. My stepmother frequently just bought one, but when I was old enough to cook I took over making one.

So on April 1, if I can, I bake a homemade apple pie from scratch. It kinda helps me from being an emotional, sobbing wreck. On the day he died (Pearl Habor Day), I just accept the fact that I am still not able to cope, and cry as much as I want.


There are not many things I was able to do with my stepdad. He is one of the people who taught me how to cook, so I think of him often. I also donate money each time I see the Disabled Veterns selling Poppies. I carry the poppy in my purse. It has been just over a year since he died, so I made sure I was with my mom again on the date of his death, as I was with her when he passed away.


Both of them were cremated. My dad's ashes are with me, here at the house, as I have not had a chance to scatter his ashes where he wished. My stepdad's are with my mom at her home, for the same reason. And she is still too attached to let go of them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing that with me. Did your dad have a specific location in mind, or was it more a category of location (at the ocean, etc.)? You don't have to tell me what specific location. I was just wondering if there was one.

[ladysea.livejournal.com]

He had a specific place in Arizona or Nevada. However, my stepmother failed to tell me the name of it, and dad mentioned it once. My stepmother is not someone I can readily ask...as she left my father's ashes in a house she had abandoned.

My stepdad wanted to be scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I hope you have the chance to do that for your stepdad, and I hope you figure out a good place in the desert for your dad even without your stepmother's help.