My father passed away back in 1997, but this is not a sad post about that.
I adore my father. He was a good and responsible man that loved his family and always held us as first importance in his life.
His main career in life turned out to be fire fighting related. First he was a fireman and then he went to work for the state of North Carolina in a division that held classes across the state, teaching volunteer fire departments various techniques & etc regarding firefighting.
Those classes were usually held on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and since they could be anywhere in the state, sometimes he left at lunch time on Monday and came home again either late Thursday night or early enough Friday morning that he was there before we went to school.
Because they were volunteer departments, it meant that the volunteers also worked regular jobs, including the Chiefs. My Dad would normally stay in motels while there, but often the Chiefs would invite him home for a meal or two and sometimes take him on tours of whatever city he was in and the such, being good hosts.
On one occasion, one of the chiefs owned or was part of owning a crematorium. Dad got the tour and found out that (at that long time ago) the $250 that Medicare paid when a person passed, would pay for the whole thing. When he came home that weekend, he announced that is what he wanted when he passed. No sense on spending scads of money for such things as was needed in traditional burials. Of course as his children, we were all going ewwwwwwww.... about the burning and the such and I remember my Mom telling us not to worry about it, that we would just go along with whatever he said and if he passed, we would just do whatever we wanted too. LOL... yes, she said it in front of him, semi serious and semi in jest, but it did help take the bite out of the perceived mental vision. Smart woman, my Moma !
All the above background was to set up for this sharing of the Daddy Tree story. Many, many years later, when my Dad did pass, he had still wanted to be cremated even though as you can imagine, the $250 cost was laughable and long gone. No matter really about the cost though, as it was no longer the driving force. Years earlier Mom and Dad had bought a home on about four and a half acres of land. Most of those years he had a big garden in the field between their home and the road. Nearer the front yard, there were grapevines and a few fruit trees.
In the years closer to my father's passing, he had said that he wanted us to bury his ashes up in that field and plant a Bradford Pear tree on top of him. When the time came though, my Mom was a little torn about doing that. On the one hand, it was what he wanted and no one had any real issue doing it, but on the other hand, one day, she would no longer live there and the home would belong to someone else, including where my Dad's ashes would be. Most of us were still ok with just doing as he wished. In the end though, my Mom decided to bury part of his ashes in the cemetery and part of them under a tree in the field. Yes... that's right, his ashes are buried in two different places. Now extended family still had a place to go lay flowers or light a candle if they chose and our family would still have part of him in the field on the land that he loved.
As you have probably already figured out, this is the tree some of his ashes are under..... The Daddy Tree, in the field in front of Mom's house.
From the beginning, my brother David started bringing a few Christmas doodads at Thanksgiving or sometime before Christmas and did a little fun, tacky decorating of the little tree. Of course as it should, it grew a little more each year. After a little bit, some of the rest of us wanted in on it, so on Thanksgiving (most times) we would go up in the field and tacky it up a little with some Christmas baubles.
Some years later, as it got much too big to really decorate it all over, we sometimes still added a few things to the lower branches or put out a solar light or two and called it good.
My bother David has been gone since 2016. Each year though, I still try to add a little something to the Daddy tree. This time I didn't get it done at Thanksgiving though.
Yesterday I went to spend the day with my Mom to visit and help her get last minute things done. I got there about noon and stayed till 7 pm. We had a sweet, happy day. We finished wrapping presents that she mostly already had done, sliced the ham, ate some good food and snacks, visited with a neighbor that brought her a homemade banana nut cake that his wife had made, exchanged our own presents and cleaned up a little. It was a good day.
While I was there, I went up to the field, hung a few shiny red mirror balls on the tree and these strings of iridescent disc that immediately twirled in the light breeze that was blowing across the field. They were so weightless that they were twirling before my hands could finish attaching them.
When I was finished. I stood back, looked at my handiwork .... and I was pleased. I knew my brothers and sisters and other family members would see it as they came in and out of the drive and it would make their hearts happy too. So little effort, so much joy.
It's Christmas Day and I am so thankful for my family and friends and all the love they have given me through the years. They have made it SO easy to love them all back.
Soon I will go to my vintage aluminum tree and open the presents Santa left me. I'm sure I'm going to love whatever it is.... I'm just SURE of it. 馃槀 I'll show you what I get later.
Hope you are all having or had a most wonderful day, however you choose to celebrate it.
