Can't Take The Country Out Of The Girl: Memorial Day Decoration

On the last Sunday of every May, which 99% of the time falls on Memorial Day, we have decoration for our Bowers' family in Sevierville. As a young'un, we knew that meant an afternoon picnic with our cousins and possibly a dip in the lake. We didn't realize the most important part of the day is going to this cemetery where great grandparents, great aunts, great uncles, and cousins are buried. Without cease or fail, my grandmother and her siblings would have their trunks loaded down with flowers, tin cans wrapped in aluminum foil, and milk jugs full of water armed and ready to pay their respects. Every year we would get the repeated lesson of who each grave belonged to and their relation to us.

This year though, we didn't get that repeated lesson. This is the first year we did this trek without one of the siblings in my grandmother's generation in attendance. We now have to put all of those years of lessons into practice on our own as my Aunt Lib recently died leaving us a couple of months shy of one last visit to these graves with one of their generation.

With some big shoes to fill, these two step up to the task of carrying out this Memorial Day Tradition - not alone, of course, as there are others in their generation but these are decidedly the oldest!

We had an album of all, or a lot of, our previous Memorial Day trips to look through. While it's extremely sad that these grandparents/parents are no longer with us, it's also very encouraging to see how the family has grown, and see a glimpse of our elders in each one.

Johnny and Janice.

Calvin, Debbie, and Deidre.

Lanie, and Thomas with the ever present stick. Or two.

Unfortunately, kids don't always know what it's like to take a blanket out in the yard and sit under the shade tree. With their grandparents. Swatting flies away. Flipping ants off the blanket. Barefoot.