As another Lame Cherry exclusive in mater anti matter.
And now for something completely me............
I will probably post this on the blog, but I wanted to share with you my coping with the death of my brother
It has been wind storm winds here for 36 hours and I was not in a mood for the day, so I told TL we should go to town for take out breakfast as sitting around is not my idea of fun in waiting for a funeral. So we went, Max enjoyed himself watching geese and I was in a pretty good mood, so decided to drive by the cemetery to see it before the funeral.
As I pulled up, I saw the back hoe with the grave digger there and I thought he was digging in the wrong spot, but it was an illusion as he was just getting lined up. So I went over, and he wondered what I was up to and I told him I wasn't there to complain, just was my brother's grave and I wanted to see it dug as I had never experienced that before.
It is a real art in digging graves He had a hinged wooden jig that he laid down. Positioned his back hoe like a hen moving eggs on a next, and then he took a flat spade and cut around the outside of the jig to keep the grass from tearing up. He had sunk a rod in next to where he was digging, which I think was to find the mother's grave, and with that, he started scraping the sod back just with the backhoe's teeth, and then pushed it back to a pile, again like a gopher digging.
He backed up his truck, laid down a plywood sheet so the truck would not sink in with weight from the dirt and started digging away.
He filled the truck, and then went to dump it.. That gave me the opportunity to study what he was doing without falling the hole or getting a backhoe to the brain. His tools were a rake, an ice chisel, a sand shovel and the flat nose spade. When he came back, I told him how much of an artform his work was He was quiet up to that time in being the child of a German, so I had big fat red haired German digging the grave. He liked the compliment as it amazes me in how people who do manual work have these little details that are the million dollar knowledge.
This is where the real adventure begins as TL and I were huddled behind the gravediggers shack from the wind, when I heard a sound in the grave which I knew would make things interesting. I kept watching him work, moving the bucket, digging and pushing and I told TL,' He has a rock down there". He was busy with that for a long time and I watched the sod move on the one end, so I knew we had a good sized boulder on our hands.
He was really gifted as after a bit, out came the rock and he finished digging. He went and dumped and came back and said with a smile, "Now you know how to dig a grave".
TL was asking about the soil and he was explaining how 50 miles west of here it is mostly sand once you get down deep. Here it is a gumbo that sticks to things like cat poo. I asked him about the rocks and he said, "Usually do not get rocks in this country", so this was a special treat as where we are, we have rocks galore on the surface, but you never see them where this cemetery is. So the rocks are buried down in a layer about 4 to 6 feet down. I learned that a 6 foot grave is just about 4 feet of dirt on it, so they do not dig 8 feet.
Anyway it was most interesting and he liked being thanked and complimented. He also said that this year they did not to pump out graves for water in them. He said you always have to get a vault and casket sitting on firm dirt or the water comes in and washes it out and will move the vault back to the surface. That is why you see cave in, in graves is they don't have the dirt right and water gets in and washed out under the casket. I never thought water moved like that under ground or could lift that kind of weight, but that is what the expert said happened, and as I have seen the results and gophers digging down, it makes sense that pockets do form under there.
By this time I was thinking I was up for an adventure. I got to looking at that boulder on the pile of dirt, and thought, "I think I would like that thing as it is mine". So I mentioned to TL we should take it home, and after he left, I scoped it out, stomped around on the field as we had to drive down a ditch and be where combines were sinking in, and hoped that I was not going to get stuck in the gumbo. After convincing myself I was not stupidly going to get stuck as I did the other day on another adventure, and bury the pickup deeper than my brother, or brake the frame going down the ditch, down we went and I backed up........and it became clear that TL and I can not lift 400 pound boulders.
Doing physics again, I knew I had to get some leverage, and as our come along was in town on another junk yard project, I went to Grandpas and borrowed a wire cable and a come along, and back we went, backed up, put the cable around the boulder, hooked up the come along and after some maneuvering, into the pick up it went just like it was meant to be.
Nice part was it was not that heavy to make me sink in the gumbo nor break the frame of the pick up and it did not roll out the back end to make the adventure last longer.
If it were me, I would make a tombstone out of it. I'm going to offer my niece it, if she wants to start a trend, which I tend to do as what is better than a boulder dug out of your grave, with your name carved into it?
As of now it is sitting on a trailer we got from the JYG and am thinking about setting it up somewhere and get something engraved on it.
The point of all of this weirdness of me is, instead of being miserable in not knowing what to do, God gave me a day of adventure. Not many people get to see their family's grave dug, and share that with the dead. Not many get a rock which the gravedigger grinned when the said, "You know I was hitting that vault with that rock trying to move it as it was that close.". At least I know the mother is still locked away and has not escaped.
We now have wonderful tales to regale people over coffee after the funeral. My dud sisters can preen about phoning it in, but when I drop the bomb of "Yeah we were digging my brother's gave yesterday", that will bring absolute silence and is like having 7 aces in a 5 card hand. I look forward to the stories and me being in possession of the grave stone in how I had my adventure day as they sat around hiding from the wind.
I think at times like this that God is peculiar really, as He directs my paths in finding things and times things out by impulse to show up in graveyards as the grave is about to be dug and I get to haul away a boulder. That is my kind of funeral and my kind of memory.
agtG
