Sheila Sims Iding
It’s not a long path, but it’s a difficult one. My sister walks this same path each week. Every Friday after work my sister, Sharon, comes to her son’s grave to leave some flowers, say some prayers and rearrange those ribbons on the little angel she leaves there.
I walk that same path most weeks too. But I walk it as an auntie not a mother. I try to get there before my sister’s visit to leave flowers, clean up his headstone and have it ready for her visit. My oldest sister, Suzy, usually has come before me on her lunch hour to do the same thing.
I don’t really go there for Andy. My visit…my flowers…my prayers…won’t bring him back and they won’t make his days in heaven any more glorious. I like to think he smiles at me for the Taco Bell treats or the Christmas bough or the pink flowers to match that shirt he wore in NYC. I think he may even get a good laugh when I have to clean the bird poop off his headstone…but the truth is I don’t go to Andy’s grave for him. I go for my sister.
People have questioned my visits…wondering why I go every week. I hope they never have to understand my reasons. When your sister loses a child there is so little you can do to make her days better…her path easier. So we do what little we can…take some flowers, straighten those angel ribbons, clean off a headstone and say some prayers.
In the spring we do a bit of gardening around the bulbs she planted in the fall. In the summer we give the grass extra water. In the fall, we clear away the leaves and we leave extra flowers because the deer eat them. (And Joey leaves a maple leaf nearby for Andy and for my dad.) And in the winter after a snowfall, we shovel a path for her.
No mother should have to go visit her son’s grave. And if fate deals her those cards, no mother should have to trudge through the snow to take some flowers or dig through the drifts to find her son’s headstone to search for that little angel. So…we make a path for her weekly visit. It’s not a long path…but it’s difficult one. It’s hard enough for an auntie to walk it each week. I can’t imagine a walking it as a mother. So we go before her (Suzy, Adam and I) to take some flowers, say some prayers and try to help ease her journey on the path she trods.