Flowers for those loved and lost

Traditionally on memorial day my childhood family would take freshly cut flowers out to the family graves and pay tribute to them. My mom would cut peonies and phlox and lilacs from the garden and fill buckets with them. Then her sisters would come over and we'd all load into the station wagon and go to the cemetery. It usually meant more than one car as I have three brothers and we all went along with the parents and the aunts. We'd place fresh flowers then by each family grave and there were many. It wasn't really a morbid time for us kids....more of a history lesson to hear of family members from the past we had never known along with the ones we did know. We'd help clear off the gravestones making sure they were tidied up and the flowers looked nice. Once When I was back visiting in Ohio I took my son and my niece and nephew all out to do as we had done as kids and they seemed to enjoy it and learning all about these relatives from their past. I miss this tradition as I live so far away now. Whenever I'm back to Ohio I usually place some fresh flowers on all the gravestone...just because.

So today fresh lilacs on a very very old lilac tree at the family home of a very good friend. A Memorial day Tribute.