Memorial Day

There were just three graves in Oakwood Cemetery that my grandmother laid flowers on every Memorial Day – her husband and son in the small veterans’ section, and her mother’s unmarked grave on the other side of the cemetery. She picked flowers from her overgrown backyard – whatever was blooming; most often yellow snapdragons and tiger lilies – and wrapped them in damp newspaper. She gathered her grandchildren and started the two-mile walk to the burial ground before the heat of the day set in.

I have tried to remember the route we took because I know it wasn’t along main roads to the proper entrance of Oakwood. I remember walking along gravel and paved roads and dirt paths trampled by many feet through somewhat wooded areas, finally reaching the cemetery on the southeast side, what I would now call “from the back”.  Perhaps development has changed the route we took; perhaps my child’s mind remembers the nearby park as the woods. I am certain however that we did not enter the cemetery through the front gate. Sometimes the path was choked with undergrowth and Grandma cautioned us to follow in her steps, to watch out for mud … and snakes. Any noise sent us hurrying to Grandma's side and grabbing the apron whose pockets held the peppermints and chewing gum that she will give us after our work is done.

Our first stop is the unmarked grave of my great-grandmother Charity Brown.  Grandma places some flowers on the grass and tells us a story about her mother.  I learned that Charity came from Texas after slavery. She was short and dark and fat and had little bitty feet. Charity's mother's name was Nellie Washington and she died at the state hospital in Osawatomie. A death notice in the Parsons newspaper said she would be interred in Oakwood but hospital records identify her final resting place as the hospital burial grounds marked only by a number that can't be tracked because some other records were lost in a fire. Grandma said Charity Brown didn’t like white people because of the abuse and mistreatment she suffered most of her life by their hand. She loved her grandchildren and spoiled my father rotten.

We walk north a hundred yards or so to the veterans’ graves.  My grandfather Lonnie Coker died when my father was just a year old. We wipe dirt and remove debris from his WWI vet’s headstone before laying flowers there. Grandma doesn’t talk about him. She grabs our hands and moves us toward her eldest son. Cleaning another grave, laying more flowers. I remember Uncle Son though I was very young when he died. He was my father’s older half-brother, more than twenty years his senior. We get our candy now and suck the sweet peppermint discs as Grandma’s eyes pass between the graves of her men; they were gone too soon.

Others have arrived to honor their dead, calling greetings across the headstones as they make their offerings. Heads bent in prayer, tears sliding down a cheek.  You see markers for the lady who used to live across the street and her husband who used to cut hair. The Sunday school teacher, the preacher, the grocery store man. The dead are still neighbors in their silent town, segregated as they were in life from the white folks. We recognize a name and say, “I remember when …”. Saying the name, telling the story, binds us to them.

Grandma walked to the cemetery each May as long as she was able.  My family moved away, I grew up and I’m never in town for Memorial Day any more.  I  do go to Oakwood when I’m home but now I drive through the main gate off Main Street and drive to “our town”. In the back, by the creek that used to overflow during heavy rains and erode the soil around the headstones.  There may be years between visits but I know the way. I can show my nieces and nephews where our people are buried.  I can tell a story of those they’ve never met. They can tell a story of the ones they have. When we say their names we know who we are.

My mother Lois Robinson Coker is there now, not far from her father Charles Robinson. My father's brother Lonnie Jr., Uncle Red, rests next to Grandma and Charity Brown. My father will be there some day. There is no room for me because I didn’t buy a plot when I had the chance. Who will find me and say my name?