Contraband

This Memorial Day weekend is the first in many years where it's been an actual summer-like experience. Warm, not-humid temperatures, sunny, lots of planting and time spent outside.

We went to the cemetery on Saturday--C, E and me. Way back in the dead of winter, only a day or two after Calla died, I remember driving around the cemetery with Mili, hearing the gravesite details without actually listening. I did a lot of nodding and whatever-ing from the front seat. I remember thinking Mili had a strange, sad job. C and I laugh now about all the available plots, and payment plans, and "the discount." One such plot was next to the creek. Mili let us know it was the last one next to water, and for a mere $150 a square foot, we could have it. Oh, but there's a 1000 square foot minimum. And no, that doesn't include the, ahem, "stone" to go on it. And that, of course, didn't include the discount.

We passed on that one.

Anyway, I also remember her saying something about planting and placing flowers. Apparently we can't plant anything in the cemetery, and if we do, there's no guarantee it won't get mowed over. HOWEVER! For $3500, we CAN have $100 worth of planting done--legally, if you will--each year until the end of the universe. Even before the discount, what a bargoon!

We passed on that too.

But this weekend, we went off the radar. One day back in the winter, C came home with lots of packets of pink-themed wildflower seeds, promising we'd plant them at Calla's stone. And oh, did we do just that.





All we can do is plant a seed and hope it grows. We nurture, we care, we love--but most of all we have to hope.