I'll gladly transfer memorials I've added to descendants, just let me know. I also give full permission to use any gravestone photo I've taken.

Below is a favorite poem that brings back childhood memories of time spent with my Mom (who passed on July 9th, 2011) visiting family and friends that had passed on. As we cleaned their stones she would tell me stories about those she'd known or stories told to her by her elders of those that had passed on before she was born or who had passed on when she was too young to remember them.
Later, as I began to trace our family roots further back, she loved to go with me as we hunted other cemeteries for their stones.

"Washing the Stones" by Maude Meehan

Armed with buckets
and small brushes, two grandsons
four and six, trudge beside me
to the family plot. Their faces serious,
pleased to be included in this ritual,
the washing of the stones.

Scrubbing at leaf-gummed
residue of winter, we speak of the
grandfather they dimly recollect.
And then because they know
all creatures die when they are old,
ask where my stone will be,
assure me earnestly that they
will clean mine too.
We know how, the youngest says, and
Look, we're really good at it.
Questions follow about burial
and death, but before long,
their interest turns to small boy
talk, their treble voices
livening this resting place.

Above the site a canopy of trees
displays tight buds, soon to unfurl
just as these sturdy blood-kin boys
are opening,
as side by side
with care we wash the stones.

I'll gladly transfer memorials I've added to descendants, just let me know. I also give full permission to use any gravestone photo I've taken.

Below is a favorite poem that brings back childhood memories of time spent with my Mom (who passed on July 9th, 2011) visiting family and friends that had passed on. As we cleaned their stones she would tell me stories about those she'd known or stories told to her by her elders of those that had passed on before she was born or who had passed on when she was too young to remember them.
Later, as I began to trace our family roots further back, she loved to go with me as we hunted other cemeteries for their stones.

"Washing the Stones" by Maude Meehan

Armed with buckets
and small brushes, two grandsons
four and six, trudge beside me
to the family plot. Their faces serious,
pleased to be included in this ritual,
the washing of the stones.

Scrubbing at leaf-gummed
residue of winter, we speak of the
grandfather they dimly recollect.
And then because they know
all creatures die when they are old,
ask where my stone will be,
assure me earnestly that they
will clean mine too.
We know how, the youngest says, and
Look, we're really good at it.
Questions follow about burial
and death, but before long,
their interest turns to small boy
talk, their treble voices
livening this resting place.

Above the site a canopy of trees
displays tight buds, soon to unfurl
just as these sturdy blood-kin boys
are opening,
as side by side
with care we wash the stones.