I’m pretty sure the experience I had recently is something my readers have not.

Long before Mom’s death she left instructions for her burial. We would not need a casket, only a container for ashes. She asked my sister Marie to accompany her to the cemetery to mark her spot.

You have to understand about this cemetery.  Established in 1892 in a beautiful section of central Texas, the care of this graveyard is not anyone’s fulltime job. Decades ago when Mom made her purchase, plot owners were given a paper receipt and told “go pick your spot.”  Responsibility for preparing the gravesite was solely the plot owner’s – no small thing in rock-filled black dirt.

For her marker Mom used a coffee can (metal, before they were made of plastic).  She filled it with cement, scratched the first 2 letters of her last name, and buried it next to her husband’s grave in a lovely spot beneath a large shade tree.

On receiving the letter that Mom’s remains were on their way, we figured it was time to locate the coffee cans so we could order her marker (for which there were also instructions).  Armed with garden tools and plenty of confidence, three of us siblings drove to the cemetery.  We knew the cans couldn’t be very deep, knew the general location, and felt sure we could find them pretty quickly.  All we had to do was dig or poke down a few inches and uncover the initialed round cement.

Well.

Backs bent, butts in the air, spades in the ground, we were not effective.  We came, we poked around, we dug, we drove away empty-handed.  Turns out the better plan is our retired fireman brother and another first responder with his metal detector doing the search. Brian located the rusted remnant – a blue Maxwell House can – in minutes.

I called the current cemetery caretaker to say we had located our plot markers and ask if they had our records. They did indeed and told me now that the records were digitized we would get plot certificates.  When I mentioned that our markers were old cement-filled coffee cans, the lady didn’t find that strange at all.  “Oh yeah,” she said, “my parents used to manage the cemetery and that’s how my dad always told people to mark their spot.”

Mom’s marker was placed in the spot she had secured with letters carved in wet cement, preserved for us to recover 33 years later. All four siblings gathered to honor Mom’s request regarding placement of her ashes.  We stood at our parents’ gravesite with a feeling of finality much different than the day of her memorial when our grief was so fresh.  The youngest among us had prepared a playlist of Mom’s favorites.  The songs floated over us as our brother used Mom’s old sharp shooter to dig a small hole.  Together we gently placed her ashes, blue eyes crying while precious memories flooded the sacred moment, reminding us of the circle that will never be broken.

The G3 and G4 part of our family circle won’t need a metal detector to visit Mom’s grave. They’ll be able to drive out, pin the spot on their device and walk right to it. Sure, it’s quick and efficient, but they’ll never have the fun of their own coffee can adventure.