It seems it has been a long time since I posted last. Much has happened in our lives since then. That night, of my last post, the call came that Mummy Iris had stopped breathing and they had taken measures to get her to the hospital. When we arrived, Mummy Iris was unresponsive, and we lost her by noon the next day. From there, we found ourselves making arrangements to take her back to Tennessee, to the county in which she was born, and bury her next to her husband.
We took her back to a little town in west Tennessee. I had not been to this part of Tennessee since I was a child, not much older than BubbaLou. I had gone when my Granddaddy passed away. I remembered the funeral home, and I remembered the cemetery once I saw it. Mummy Iris and Big Daddy have a beautiful view on top of a hill looking down into a valley and onto several other hills. It was BubbaLou's first time to visit this cemetery which held so many of her ancestors.
My BubbaLou, she has a kind heart, and it did nothing less than show what it is during this trip. We were looking at grave stones as we were walking up to check the spot where Mummy Iris was to be buried. We wanted to make sure they were placing her beside my Big Daddy. BubbaLou got to reading small grave stones. Some were marked just "Baby." There were no names, just two little stones. She noticed this and it wore on her.
A little later, as we were coming down the hill, we pointed out the stones of Mums siblings, though born before her, they never lived but a few days. There names were on their stones. BubbaLou looked around and found some stray silk flowers that had been blown around. She picked them up and poked them in the ground in front of the stones of her baby great aunt and uncle. She looked at me and asked if she could run back up the hill and place some flowers on those of the unnamed babies. Of course I said yes, and she ran up the hill to do this. She came down, and saw another stone that had weathered so much you couldn't read it. She looked around for more stray flowers and poked them in the ground in front of the stone.
I have to tell you that my eyes were full of tears, and my heart full of love for this little girl who showed so much love to those who have gone on to heaven before her. She would have made Mummy Iris so very proud. Decorating graves was very important to her. She felt is was very important to treat those graves with respect and love.
After we went to check out the grave site, cousin Carl drove us out to pick buttercups on cousin Laverne's orders. BubbaLou is a flower picker, and she picked her little heart out.
Look at us, said the violets blooming at her feet, all last winter we slept in the seeming death but at the right time God awakened us, and here we are to comfort you.
~Edward Payson Rod
