ROBIN WRITES: Honoring those passed

By Editor | May 19, 2026 |

My grandmother died when I was a little girl. Since we lived across the street from our church and cemetery, Mom and I visited the gravesite often.
Mom held my hand as we trotted across the blacktopped road; her other hand held a clump of plastic flowers or a jar of irises from our yard.
All the visits I remember were in the summer, when the air was heavy and the grass was sharp and dry. Cicadas moaned a cadence that was loud and comforting in its rhythm.
Mosquitoes followed us from the minute we stepped onto the grounds. They kept me busy, slapping and waving my arms to stir them away.
The afternoon sun beat against the limp leaves on the trees that dotted the graveyard, trying to pry entrance into the shade below. Mossy clumps clung to the ground beneath those trees—when we walked there, I could hear it smushing under my sneakers.
Roly-Poly bugs scuttled across the moss, dodging our intrusion with furtive, right-angled turns.
Mom and I took our time walking toward Grandma’s grave, and along the way, we stopped here and there to visit our favorite headstones.
One headstone held a sepia photo of a little boy. The stone was as small as the span of his life. He was smiling. We thought he looked happy to be in Heaven with God.
Some of the graves had elaborate, shiny monuments bigger than my body. They had one big word, written in capital letters at the top, and numbers underneath. The graves surrounding the large headstone often had the same word etched on them. “A family plot,” Mom would tell me.
I thought plot was a funny word. It sounded like the sound a foot makes stomping a puddle.
Other graves had headstones made of little rocks, all stuck together in a clump. Many of the rocks held shiny flecks, like pieces of broken glass. I reached out an index finger and traced the letters chiseled there, as if decoding braille.
Mom taught me how to walk in a cemetery. “Never step on a grave,” she’d whisper. She always whispered when we visited Grandma. But it wasn’t a scary whisper. It was warm and soft, like her cheek when she hugged me at bedtime.
When I came close to a headstone, I tiptoed along the edges of the grass in front of it. I tried to guess how tall the person was underneath so I wouldn’t step on him. If I forgot to be careful and got too close to the “plot”, I’d take a Mother-May-I giant step to get to the other side.
We arrived at Grandma’s grave, and Mom gave my hand a squeeze. She smiled as she bent to clean little sticks or bits of grass from around the metal placard that had Grandma’s name written on it.
MARY SIMS, it said. Mom’s name was Mary, too. It was easy for me to remember.
“She’ll like these flowers,” Mom told me. She’d try to push the plastic stems into the ground, but the ground was always too hard. Sometimes I ran to the trees nearby and found a stick to dig a hole with.
Mom let me try for a minute or two, but we would end up just laying the flowers across the grave like a frilly fan. After a few minutes, we’d head back to the top of the graveyard, the road just beyond, and home.
Mom cried sometimes, but she told me it was sweat from the sunshine. I’d squeeze her hand and tell her I loved her. Our hands were wet from all that sweat and tears and love, but we both held tight.
Cemeteries are wonderful, calm, and bittersweet places for me. I visit Grandma’s grave—and Mom’s—as often as I can. I bring flowers. And I remember.
–––––––––––––
■ Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].