We said goodbye to my Grandpa back in March. We held a small funeral for family and friends in an outdoor pavilion at Quantico National Cemetery. Headstones take up to five weeks to come in after ordering and as of yet, I had not had a chance to go back and see where Grandpa had been buried. So with another day of waiting for a job to come in, I decided on taking a quest, mainly to visit Grandpa's grave.
I had hoped vainly that I would remember the general location within the cemetery, but the simplicity and beauty of Quantico is in its uniformity of graves....everything has a way of looking the same. And so I headed into the information/admin building where a kiosk is set up to help visitors locate gravesites. When the computer didn't work, I had to flip through a binder alphabetically listing the basic information for each person and grave location. My second time driving through the cemetery successfully landed me in the right section.
This past summer in Christiansburg was difficult, I saw my grandpa everywhere: in the mountains, the houses we were working on, the bass players of bluegrass groups. Grief is a hard friend to adjust to. It sneaks up and hits when you least expect, a kick in the stomach taking one's breath.
And so I stood in that quiet, peaceful cemetery and I said all the things my heart needed to get out. There was a sense of closure, of freedom and forgiveness. I loved that foolish man, who held parts of himself back, and I will always carry his love for music deep in my bones.
It is fitting where my Grandpa is buried. He was always popular with the ladies, and it just so happens that he is surrounded by ladies on either side. :o)
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