To Give Him Honor

I had failed in my mission. A few months before my dad died my mom sent me to the cemetery office to make plans to soon use one of the graves in her family’s plot. Her parents had purchased a plot with six graves, two rows of three grave sites each, and there were three remaining. The cemetery folks looked up the family information in the time-worn index cards which listed who was buried where and told me that three graves had been located in a row in the center of the plot and there was no space left.

“What?” I said in confusion, “they were poor farmers, why would they have agreed to waste three spaces?” The people there didn’t know and couldn’t speculate on why this had happened. I suspected that someone years ago in that office had hoodwinked my brokenhearted, mainly German-speaking grandparents.

In my mom’s family album there’s a photo I’ve lingered over, again and again, of my grandparents and their relatives standing in front of Uncle Max’s grave. So many flowers—how could they ever afford that? Posing for the camera—how could they keep from bowing over in grief? All in black, my grandmother wearing a heavy coat and my grandpa in his only suit, surrounded by their sister and brothers.

Tonight, so many years later, I finally understood; he was worth it. My mom always said how kind and hard-working her brother was. He was charming and attractive but didn’t marry because he knew the diabetes had shortened his life and he wouldn’t be the husband—for long enough—that he’d want to be.

I think my grandparents told the cemetery people to put their only son in the center of the family plot because he was so important to them and they would one day rest on either side. To give him the best they could afford, a place of honor in the cold, dark ground.