Sunday 25 November 2012

November remembering

Mum and dad passed away two years ago now. It's hard to believe. And I've gone from thinking I had to go every day or every week, to just managing to squeeze in a visit to the cemetery before November is finished. But that's life with children. I do go at other times of the year as well, just not as much as I'd like to.
I did want to make sure we went in November though, and not just myself. So I took them all and we prayed the Rosary in the car on the way. Then we did a decade there. It was a bit waterlogged and there was the inevitable policing of children investigating neighbouring grave stones and flowers- but the lesson was imparted. We visit cemeteries to pray for loved ones. And we do this especially in November.
I was actually dog tired and didn't want to go but I knew it was the right thing to do, and it was.

It's a good lesson for me as well. When I was young a visit like this was just nostalgia. I couldn't relate too emotionally to the people we were visiting. It was just 'duty' and 'nice'. But my children knew and loved my grandparents, I hadn't really known mine well.
I hope I can impart something of the reality of our existence to them in a visit like this. But it's not a harsh reality. Perhaps a wake-up call, yes.
But it's a wake-up call to a beautiful morning that awaits us beyond the reality we see. We believe in the God who made all that is seen and unseen. The immeasurably beautiful unseen.

Mum and Dad,
pray for us,
and we for you. Amen

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