I spoke with the funeral home today regarding George Mason’s burial. I actually learned its not called a burial when you are placing ashes in the ground… chalk that up as one of the things I never thought I would learn or know. Its been five and a half months since we said see you in heaven to our sweet boy. Those months have been hard but with each passing day there is a little less hurt or pain. Sometimes I even forget that I’m a grieving mama. Time is funny like that. So when I picked up the phone to dial the number for the cemetery we have settled on, I didn’t expect to struggle through the conversation.
One of the things that seems so terrible about all of this is having to go through and re live all of the sadness of those first hours without him. That was literally some of the worst moments of my entire life and as I begin to transition the details of this graveside service from hypothetical to reality, I’m realizing how hard this next milestone is going to be. I’m admittedly not a fan of cemeteries. I don’t enjoy being in them, I don’t have a desire to visit the graves of loved ones, I just find them icky. That’s such a childish word and honestly how I feel when I’m thinking about cemeteries, but if I can’t be honest with myself about these emotions and feelings, I will never be able to get through this service. I would be leaving a part of this grieving process undone or incomplete… my heart needs this closure, even if my brain doesn’t. While I don’t have an upfront need for this particular part of the process, I am fully respectful of the people who do; my husband included. And even though my heart doesn’t seem to need a marker in the ground to remember my son, his ashes need a place, they deserve a place, other than a shelf in the back of a closet. So here I am, writing a check and making preparations for a little piece of real estate in a cemetery in Charlotte.
Its day’s like this that I think, Jesus, come quickly.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. - 1 Corinthians 15:50-58