Pre Father's Day Ritual (June 19)

We have a ritual that we do every year on the day before Father's Day.

No, it isn't a religious ritual. It is something that Dewayne's family does every year and has since he was a kid. They go out to the cemetery to clean and redecorate the family graves.

Dewayne has done this since he was a boy. His father passed away when he was 11 and since then it has had even more meaning to him.

I remember the first time I went with him, thinking that I was going to the end of the world.

This is not just some drive to a cemetery. It is a LONG treck down one side of a step mountain road, across a rickety one lane bridge (that Im convinced will fall into the water at anytime) and then up the other side of the steep mountain road, all of which is dirt.

We try to get to the cemetery early because the heat is so bad. We arrive around 9 a.m. and meet a cousin of his. She used to babysit Dewayne when he was a baby and she gets a kick out of seeing how much like him Lil Bit looks.

Dewayne gets out the hoe and remounds his father's grave, and the graves of his father's parents who died before he was born. Then we put the new flowers on the graves. This year both Allison and Lil Bit joined in.

We all pose for pictures that his cousin Lisa wants to take and we small talk for a bit. But the heat drives us all back to our air conditioned vehicles.

On the way home, Dewayne drives us passed the house he grew up in, and passed the land his family used to own. He shows us the field his uncle used to work with just a mule, a plow and a whole lot of determination. He also shows us the rock building that used to be a one room school house where his father whent to school. And he shares with the kids and I stories of his father's family and of growing up on the mountain.

This is the 4th year I have gone with him and the 4th time I have been passed these places and heard these stories, but I know that this is something very important to Dewayne and so we will go every year and in this way, the kids will get to know family that lived before them and hopefully learn some respect for family rituals such as this.

Blessed Be!