Dad

1/12/97 - I visited my father's grave. He died August 13th on a Friday (yup) 1976.... so twenty years later we finally got a stone down with his name. Don't ask me to explain why, complexities... the family was not one to go back to the grave much. I guess we all thought that we had taken care of that. I went back for the first time on Father's Day 1995 when I was attempting to discover myself... maybe repair family relationships that were probably never whole to begin with. After the second divorce and at the age of 40, you are looking at things, fixing things in your life that maybe weren't to your total satisfaction.

Anyway I visited the grave that day in 1995. Well, I didn't visit the grave - I couldn't find it. I wasn't sure whether I didn't remember where it was or if it wasn't marked. I walked around for a few minutes, all the while thinking that I should be able to remember where my father's grave would be. I ended up just telling him that I was there and that I would check back with him later.

(I assumed he wouldn't be going anywhere)

Last year my brother's wife decided it was time we did something about the marker. She went to the cemetery and talked to the folks there. Seems not only did we not get the marker, but they didn't have records of the plot for my mother (next to Dad ) having been paid for, as well as one for my sister next to that. And, they had sold my sister's to someone else. There were few alternatives. We could stack - "Bunk graves" - and my sister would be next to them. Or Sis could be down one and over two. The obvious choice.

The marker was a good one. Dad was a veteran of W.W.II. In an engineering unit that built the Bailey Bridges (no relation ). As a Vet, we were entitled to a free marker with military references on it. "No problem." they said at the cemetery. "We can install the marker for $750." "How much is your marker?" "$750, but the installation is free." We decided to remember his military service on a perpetual care basis.

So we fixed it, its there.

Funny... I can still remember his Social Security number but I had his birthday wrong. For years I had myself thinking it was January 17th, but there it was on the marker - January 10th. I said "Hey, is that the right birthday? Isn't it the 17th?" "No Dan, it is the 10th."

A co-worker's birthday is January 17th and for years that is the way I remembered it. OOPS.

Some people think it odd that I remember the Social Security number, but there is a reason. Dad died of emphysema. Just before Christmas of 1974 he came down with a bad case of pneumonia and almost died then. The doctors said he must have had the emphysema for a while, and that he probably knew something was wrong. Anyway, he recovered from his pneumonia but he was terribly weakened and bed-ridden. Over the next year-and-a-half he was mostly in the bed at home or in the hospital. I think I admitted him to the hospital around forty or fifty times....each time giving his name - Hershel Vernard Bailey, his Social Security number, and his date of birth. Should I check with the hospital and see if I gave the wrong date of birth then?

Don't know when I'll visit again. I only went today because I was at lunch with my mother and sister and we were at a restaurant that is close to the cemetery. They asked and I lacked a good reason not to go - so I went. I don't know - my father was not someone that I picture as being a sentimentalist. I think that might be why I grew up with this attitude toward visiting even his grave site. I am somewhat more sentimental than he, though I deny it sometimes. I know that he is not at the grave anyway. The visiting of the grave is really for the living not for the dead.

I'll go back sometime.... There is a nice view of the city skyline from up on the hill.