Where Are They?

My sister Nancy recently asked me if I remembered the name of the cemetery where our father was buried? I told her that I thought the name was Holy Cross Cemetery but that I was only ninety per cent sure. However, I could definitively tell her the location of his grave. Her confusion and my inability to positively identify the name of the cemetery is partially due to the fact that it is located along side many others in the land of cemeteries, Colma, California. But my past journeys to the site informed me that once in Colma I would know precisely where to go to see his final resting spot. My sister’s question reminded me that it had been a very long time since had I visited either of the places that marked the death of our parents. So on consecutive days I went to each location and let the sadness wash over me; to once more allow the painful memories of their deaths test the strength of my beliefs and answer the question of “Where are they?”.  

My parents both handled their own memorial arrangements in ways that reflected a fundamental part of their personalities. My mother passed away after a long suffering death from cancer. She was a very proud woman and she had no desire to have anyone see her in her final emaciated state of death. She also was acutely aware of the fact that her protracted illness had been a tremendous burden on her children. So in an effort to die with dignity and to alleviate us from the task of arranging her funeral, she donated her body to UCSF Medical School. For my mother there was a small service but there would be no grave or stone to mark her passing. So to have a specific spot to visit and remember her my siblings and I decided to throw a dozen roses into the San Francisco Bay at a location known as the Wave Organ. For all intense and purpose that became the final resting spot for my dear mother.

About two years after the death of my mother, my father died suddenly. My father was a very practical man who once advised me that buying an expensive casket and spending a lot on a funeral was a complete waste of money. I guess he did not trust that my siblings and I, while immersed in an instant state of grief as a result of his death, would be able to avoid the temptation of paying homage to him with an expensive casket and lavish headstone; so he preempted our difficult decision by arranging his whole funeral ahead of time. One afternoon, before he and I went to lunch, he went to the mortuary and paid for a burial plot, the burial services, a cheap casket, and a simple headstone. When he died all my siblings and I had to do was attend his pre-arranged traditional Catholic services. There was a Rosary the night before, the church funeral, and then the ceremony at the cemetery. We were left with a simple grave which marked his passing that we could visit and remember him.

When my mother passed away, my parents were no longer married and because their estrangement my father was somewhat separated from her memorial proceedings. When my siblings and I went to the Wave Organ to throw the bouquet of flowers, my father was not asked to attend our little ceremony. It was about one year after my mother’s death and about one year before my father’s demise when he called me one day to see what I was doing that particular afternoon. I told him that was planning to go out to the Wave Organ to throw some roses in the Bay for mom. There was a pause on his end of the phone and then he quietly asked me if he could go with me. Without hesitation, I told him he could and he came by to pick me up. We stopped along the way to get some roses and silently drove to the location. We parked and made the walk toward the end of the little peninsula jutting out into the water. My father slowed down and fell back behind me as I climbed down the rocks to the water’s edge. I stood there for a few minutes thinking about my mother. I shed a few tears and then, as with my siblings a year earlier, tossed the flowers into the water. I climbed back up to where my father was standing and without a word we began to walk back to the car. As we were walking my dad reach out and touched me on the shoulder to stop me. I turned to him and he spoke to me in a calm voice. He said, “This is a really nice place for you to go to think about your mother and throw flowers. I am sure she would greatly appreciate your heart-felt gesture. But always remember Bill, you don’t have to go to a particular place to speak to your mother. She is always with you wherever you go.” From that day forward, I have always been sure of the location of my parents.

I took the two small journeys to the places where my parents are symbolically remembered and it only served to reinforce my understanding of their current location. My little pilgrimage to the sites reminded me of what my father told me that day so long ago that informed my beliefs regarding the spirits of those loved and lost. So, to answer the question of “Where are they?” I will never say, “In Holy Cross Cemetery or in the San Francisco Bay near the Wave Organ”. What I will say is, “They are always right here, alive and well inside of me.”