The first thing that hit me was the smell of lilacs. The sun was hot on my face, and as usual in Jersey, the wind had made itself scarce for the official start of summer. The calendar might say June 21st, but any Jersey-ite worth their salt knew that summer started Memorial Day weekend, and the parking lot that was the road out to Point Pleasant was testament to that. I'd debated heading that way myself on Saturday morning, but somehow I just wasn't up for the free-for-all of hand gestures, loud voices, thumping stereos and rattling exhaust systems that accompanied a trip to the Jersey shore on one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year.
It hardly seemed worth the effort to fight my way to the shore only to turn around and come back almost as soon as I got there. Rentals would have been booked up months if not a full year in advance, and besides, MaryAlice had made her first communion on Sunday. I may not win any awards as the world's most doting aunt, but the Burg required family attendance at certain functions. You better be laid out in one of the slumber rooms at Stivas if you wanted to get out of a wedding, funeral, christening or first communion. MaryAlice had done us all proud, and I silently wondered what bribe Valerie had used to keep her from prancing down the aisle like a horse.
We ate ourselves into a stupor, as proper Burg-ers are required to do on such occasions, and now here it was Memorial Day, and I found myself motoring around with Grandma Mazur. My dad had bought a new gas barbecue in honor of the start of summer, and my mother was convinced that the propane tank would blow up the house if she weren't there to supervise every nut and bolt. My mother's voice was getting more and more shrill, and her trips to the pantry to tipple more frequent. My father, on the other hand, had gone from terse to snippy, clear to silent glowering, a sure sign that he was well on the way to an eruption that would rival Vesuvius. My dad didn't blow often, but when he did, it was best to be out of blast range.
I could clearly see that Grandma Mazur's suggestions were not exactly helping, so I offered to drive her to the florist, then out to the cemetery to visit my grandfather's grave. I figured I could take the scenic route, and make sure we didn't get back until the grill was safely put together or gone up in flames. I really didn't care which as long as I didn't have to be there.
I maneuvered Big Blue through the wrought iron cemetery gates, and began the long, torturous climb up the hill to the "new" section of the cemetery. Trenton had been burying it's sons and daughters in this cemetery for over two centuries, and as room had run out down below, the dead kept climbing into the surrounding hills. We made the last turn into the section where Grandpa Mazur waited patiently for Grandma, and the smell of the lilac hedge wafted through the open windows in a sweet cloud.
We both inhaled deeply, and I stole a glance at Grandma. She had a faraway smile on her face, and she had been unusually quiet after we'd picked up a mixed spring bouquet at Feeney's Florist. "Everything okay, Grandma?" I asked at last. Usually, you couldn't turn her off, but today she was subdued.
"Oh, just remembering," she finally said as I pulled to a stop at the end of the appropriate row.
She gave her hair a fluff as if she were going to meet a beaux, then clambered out of the car with some alacrity before I could move around and offer to help her out. Obviously whatever was on her mind wasn't physical, she was still spry as ever. I stood by the fender and watched her pick her way carefully over to my grandfather's headstone. Those vast fields of headstones always made me nervous. Add that to my penchant for a sobbing breakdown during a funeral, anyone's funeral, and I thought it was best I keep some distance between me and the actual graves. If I kept my feet firmly on the macadam, I reasoned, instead of on the grass, maybe I could avoid that squishy feeling in my stomach.
I watched as my grandmother fished a handkerchief out of the sleeve of her sweater. Had to be pushing 80 degrees this morning, but Grandma wouldn't go anywhere without her white sweater. During the winter, she might opt for cardigans of a different color, but from Memorial Day to Labor Day, white went with everything, at least in Grandma's world. She knelt down and used her handkerchief to dust off the headstone, removing any trace of detritus that might have accumulated since her last visit. I saw her lips moving and realized she was having a conversation with my grandfather, and felt like an intruder even though I couldn't hear the words. She finally laid the flowers gently over the stone, arranging the blooms just so they fanned out nicely under the carving of his name and the dates he had lived. I watched as she kissed her rheumy old fingers, then lightly laid her fingertips atop his stone before she moved slowly back to her feet.
A young man approached her then, and offered a small American flag. She smiled at him, and took it, giving him a nod of thanks. She laid the flag carefully atop the flowers and ambled back my direction. I tilted my head, quizzical.
"He was a Marine, you know," she said quietly. "On Iwo Jima."
"I didn't know," I said lamely.
"He didn't talk about it much," she said, and climbed back into the car.
As I turned to look at the meandering field of gravestones one last time before we left, I wondered how many other unknown soldiers rested beneath the verge like my grandfather. Unknown men and women leading quiet lives, never speaking of the horrors they'd seen, or the sacrifices they'd made.
I felt small for a moment, then vowed that next year, next Memorial Day, I would bring Valerie and the girls here. I would tell my nieces about their grandfather, so that he and the others would never be forgotten.