Interment

     Before my mom died, she made her pre-need arrangements.  She wanted to be cremated, wished not to have her ashes scattered but rather to have a memorial, something permanent.  A family friend who does woodworking made for us a beautiful urn, and when the time came my father and I kept it in our house in a place of honor, often with flowers and photos.  She had reserved a niche in a mausoleum, but we just kept things that way.  When I grew up and moved out Papa left it up to me to bring the urn to my new apartment, which I did.  I lived in my first apartment for 7 years, then moved last year to a new place.  Shortly after the move I was feeling a lot of fresh grief.  I was living now very close to where I'd grown up, I was also living alone for the first time in a long time since my best friend had been my roommate for the previous 3 years.  Maybe these were factors.  Sometimes grief just seems to renew itself spontaneously, triggered by unexpected details. 
      I was learning to play and sing this new song by Dave Matthews, "Gravedigger," that really moved me.  There's this poetic device he uses to begin each verse: a name, and years of death and birth.  "Cyrus Jones, 1810 -1913..."  invoking a picture in my mind of the traditional grave marker we provide for our loved ones, and I suddenly had a yearning to have that for my mother.  I wanted there to be some place for her where people passing by in a cemetery would see "Lois Roop, 1954-1994."  There seems so much significance in that simple description of a lifetime, such poignant simplicity.  I thought of the urn sitting near me in my bedroom where I was playing, and thoughts and feelings started swirling around about how I've felt over the years. 
     Over the next few months I did a lot of thinking, remembered that there was a reservation in the cemetery, and with a lot of help from Papa, we made arrangements to inter her cremains finally.  I was ready for that.  She would be laid in her final resting place. 
     This past summer my mother's sister,Aunt Ruthie and my cousin Sarah made plans to travel from their home in California to my cousin's wedding in Georgia and to visit me in Florida while they were out east.  My father and stepmother also joined us, and we had an unexpected opportunity to do this interment with Papa, Ruthie, and Sarah. 
    Being an adult now, I was able to have a bigger part in the interment, to make decisions, to physically place her urn in the mausoleum.  The timing seemed perfect, and my closest family was there with me. I feel grateful, and relieved.  Grateful to have my wonderful family, and relieved to have fulfilled my responsibility to her physical remains.  I feel like they're safe, now.  And more significantly, I have a place to go ceremonially, to set apart from ordinary life, to visit, pay respects, honor anniversaries and birthdays, and see her name,  forged in bronze, a visual reflection of her importance.