We were talking about this on the way home from hospital today. I confessed to Cindi and Bekah that it seems odd to me to be buried away from Richardsville. Crowded into that little cemetery opposite Richardsville Methodist Church lie so very many whom I have known and loved over the years: my mom and dad, my brother, both sets of grandparents, every last one of my aunts and uncles (save Uncle Edgar, who - thanks be to God! - is still walking around), my mother's grandparents, my cousins, my mom's aunts and at least one of my dad's. Yet for all that, I've chosen to be buried at St. Paul's when the time comes. Richardsville is "home" in the since that it is where my family roots will always lie, but bury me with my fellow confessors of the Augsburg Confession here in Hamel beside the non-stop roar of traffic along I-55. I trust that on the day of the resurrection, we'll find each other soon enough no matter where our mortal clay is planted, and well, this place has become home of another sort.
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Very recently I've noticed that all the cemeteries in the area of my home town, observe the orientation of the dead in burial. All graves are head to west, feet to east, so that when the dead shall rise, they shall be facing Christ as he comes in the East. My father's family has been in Slidell at least by the 1900 census. A great grandmother who is buried in the huge family cemetery up at Society Hill, Miss., just norht of Columbia, Miss. was living with her son and daughters here at the time, with them. She chose to return where her husband and parents and ancestors are.
My grandparents, and grand aunts/uncles are buried in an old cemetery here in Slidell. You can see the local grammar school and my 1st grade classroom from their tombs and graves. I would have liked my parents buried there, there is room, with my brother and I tucked in at their feet (not-oriented). But, my mother was never partial to my father's family and he's buried where she and her local sisters and nieces and nephews are buries. A newer cemetary and her grave awaits her right next to daddy. As is the case in our parish we have about half Catholic and half Baptist, so the cemetery is also half and half with some crossover. Therefore, Mama, not identifying with either, bought graves on a middle ground between the in and out roads. It long and slender and planted with Magnolia trees. We don't know whether there are available graves there for my brother and I, but if not, we can take the two in the old cemetery and be spread all over town. Mama is 88 and never been healthy a day in her life, so naturally she has outlive all but two of her 8 sisters to date, and everyone else. She's put a pharmacist's symbol on my father's grave and a Luther Rose on her's.
In our Church's cemetery. Every Pascha when the entire parish processes through the cemetery singing "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life," I want to be there. I don't see any good reason for that to change when I enter into eternity.
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