For My Grandfather

 

Muggy, still a little chilly, dew-heavy grass squeaking under my barn boots as I set out to gather flowers in the early morning stillness. A deer in the field behind the house snorted to its baby just before bounding off to the neighbor's. Birds scattered from their searches for breakfast as I approached, mostly robins sounding the alarm to their teenage fledglings nearby.

On my mind - the fragment of a poem, written by Mr. Oliver Walcott Grimm:

... the flowers.

fresh with heaven's dews and showers

For it's that poem that sent me to cut long stems of flowers - hydrangea, lilies, bee balm, zinnias, echinachea, black eyed susans, daisies, Queen Anne's lace - enough to fill an old milk tote, a jug heavy enough to be secure in the back of the car for a long trek to Sullivan County.

I was set on a mission that day, a long-overdue mission – not exactly my mission, but in another way, very much my mission.

For my grandfather had hoped to honor a friend - a friend he remembered even in 1969, 62 years after this friend had 'gone on to his reward'.

"If we knew where rested the remains of this one-time friend,
it would please us very much to scatter a few flowers with loving hand
on his resting place," Grand-daddy wrote

With 21st Century research tools and the able assistance of the Sullivan County Historical Society, the resting place of Mr. Grimm's remains was discovered. And there on a hilltop in the Mountain Ash cemetery in LaPorte, Pennsylvania, with sweet voices of children playing in a park just across the way, I scattered 'monstrous big bouquets and grand' for my grandfather ... and for me.

*Here is the link to my Decoration Day blog post with more of the story.