A computer glitch kept me from my 2 usual posts last month. I just know I’m going to toss this thing in a dumpster one day. Now onto the post…

I don’t know many people that incorporate a cemetery visit into a girl’s weekend trip, but I did. As it turns out, the ladies that I was with had family members buried in Roselawn, and I really wanted to go and visit them. Jennifer’s mom and grandparents were in Roselawn, and Dawn’s mom was there. I remembered Jen’s mom and grandma, and certainly Dawn’s mom, Carol.

Jennifer’s Grandma Ernestine was a sweet woman, and she always believed the best of us, no matter what we did or how terrible it was. It was her husband that owned the enormous Buick Park Avenue that Jen learned to drive in, and that we all rode around in as kids. That thing could literally hold 8 of us comfortably. Even on this trip Jennifer drove; it’s in her blood since she’s literally been doing it since she was WAY under the legal driving (or learning) age. Grandpa had a lot of well-placed faith in her.

Dawn’s mom died suddenly in 2017 and we stopped first to see her. Before the trip we all trudged to Wal Mart to buy new flowers. Dawn’s mom loved hydrangeas, so we were looking specifically for those and thankfully, they had some.

We met Jennifer at Roselawn in front of Dawn’s family plot. Her mom had been cremated and Dawn had purchased a pretty marker for her, and she cleaned this carefully and then dusted the leaves off of the headstones of her other family members. She prepared the flowers, removed the old ones, and then set them up in the owl vase her daughter had chosen for the space. The rest of us loitered around, very conscious of the fact that there was nothing easy about coming out here or doing any of this. Mendy and I sat on a bench talking, enjoying the music from the wind chimes over our heads. It was a windy day and the sound was rich and vibrant on the spring breeze.

Dawn’s mom was funny and kind, and she drove us to school on many rainy or cold mornings, both in middle school and then later on when we went to high school, the same one she had also graduated from. Spending the night at their house mostly felt like home when I was a kid, and she created that feeling.

Afterward we went to see the Warner’s, Jennifer’s family, which were located closer to the back of the cemetery. When we were kids after a long night out we would sometimes drive out here around midnight or later for Jen to talk to her grandfather. This was before the cemetery was gated, before it became home to over 8,000 burials. Most of the time the rest of us would stay in the car while she sat on his grave for a few minutes. We would roll the windows down and listen to the crickets, and look cautiously around at the pitch black night that surrounded us in the big car. For the most part though, I always felt safe. It’s a beautiful place.

This time I placed flowers on Ernestine’s grave and told her that yes, that was Jennifer running down her road in the middle of the night once when we were in high school, and that yes, Jennifer had lied about it when asked. While we were up to no good that night as usual, we weren’t doing anything more serious than staying out too late.

Jen was still mad about the headstone that her brother had picked out for her mom, who was in the next plot. She gestured to it wildly and asked us what the hell we thought of it. (She phrased it just like that, which is why I’ve always liked her.) Here is Cheryl Warner Coker’s epitaph:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest that have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4-13-14

 

“What the hell is that?” she asked, gesturing again (this time I caught it on camera). We all slumped over, looking a little closer, waiting for the punchline. The truth was, none of us would have picked that for Cheryl’s marker. I think she would have been more suited to a song lyric from the 70’s rather than a long winded and particularly flowery Bible verse. My memories of her included music, cigarettes, and her laughter. Jennifer obviously thought her brother had not chosen appropriately, but there’s nothing to be done about it after all this time, and I still say when people are grieving they’re pretty much out of their minds for awhile. And that’s okay. Maybe that’s why he chose that inscription. At the time, it may have felt perfect.

Or he could have been trying to annoy Jennifer.

I know not many people would meet their girlfriends on a bright Saturday morning in a cemetery, but after being away from Tallahassee for over 20 years without going back, I wanted to see everybody, both alive and dead. We went by all of our old houses and were alarmed at some of the changes, especially Mendy’s, which was abandoned. We went by our old middle school and high school and took pictures. We did all of the things that you do when you come back to a place, all the while layering the present over the past by talking about kids, spouses, and jobs. Reminiscing wasn’t as painful as I’d thought it would be.

I was grateful for that.

I am giving my first talk about a cemetery in Tampa next week, so please quietly cheer me on from wherever you are. I’ll be talking to kids, so I’m pretty excited about that. Can’t wait to hear their questions!