Cruising through Calvary

Several times a week I find myself driving through Calvary Cemetary.   Many generations of my family members on both my mother and fathers side are buried there.  Both sets of my grandparents are there, and often I drive by their gravesites, and find myself talking out loud to them.  I wish them Happy Holidays, I wish them peace, and I reminise with them about my memories of them.  When I am having issues with my children, I go there and ask them, how they ever mangaged raising their kids.  They never answer me, but I find a sense of solace, in just knowing that they too raised their families and faced lifes ups and downs like we all do.

I drive all through the cemetary, and when I am feeling stressed out or overwhelmed by life, I find myself comforted in knowing that all these people buried here, have a story to tell.  They all knew some sort of joy and some sort of sorrow at one time in their lives.  I think of my great Aunt Sophie who is buried in this cemetary.  She lost a son at the age of 8, she had a daughter born with cerebral palsey, she had a husband who lost a limb in a work accident, and she lost a son at the age of 42.  All these things happened to her, and yet whenever I visited with her, she would be baking or regaling me with family stories with laughter and a twinkle in her eyes.  She knew sorrow and she knew joy in her lifetime, and died in her 90's.  I think of my great Aunt Mesa, her mother died when she was a teen, and she ended up raising my grandmother Rose.  It could not have been easy to have lost your mother and then to become a second mother to your own sister.  But when I think of Aunt Mesa, she too knew joy and sorrow, and yet when I would visit with her, she never said woe is me, she would tell me stories of her childhood and that of her siblings, and I would end up laughing at the stories she would tell. She is buried in Calvary as well.  So many of my family members, so many strangers, and they all have stories.

Many of these people woke up each day, went to work and experienced life....the good, the bad, and the ugly.  But they all lived.  For the babies who are buried at Calvary, I find a kind of peace in knowing that God needed angels, and those babies are all angels in heaven watching over us.  Not everyone believes these things, but I'm not asking anyone to share my beliefs, I just know that I find comfort in knowing that when I am cruising through Calvary, I am not alone.  I am surrounded by angels, and family members who watch over me and my family from heaven.  And when I am having a particularly bad day, I cruise through Calvary and remember to cherish each day, as my story continues to be written..