Heart of Stone

The pilgrimageto the River Towy with OldestBestFriend and my boys wasn’t just about nostalgia.

I also had a mission.

The family home we were brought up in was built by the great-grand and grandparents and stayed in the family until Dad finally went into residential care.  Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried in adjoining graves in Manordeilo’s churchyard. 

 

My earliest memories are of walking up to the churchyard with Grampa and Granma to put flowers on his parents’ grave.  He died when I was five and I often accompanied Granma to put flowers on the graves.  She died when I was fourteen and I would either go with Mum and Dad to put flowers on the graves, or sometimes take them up myself.  For many years the last thing we did on our week in Wales was visit the churchyard with flower for the two, then three graves.

 

Being the senior sibling, and living closest, Bigbrother looks after the graves.   

In order that they always look cared for he has put some really good quality artificial flowers in the holders, changing them at Christmas with more seasonable artificial foliage. This means we can no longer put fresh flowers on them.

 

Over the past decade our parents’ grave developed a slump, a trench deep enough for someone to twist their ankle in.  We had noticed it on our visits but weren’t really equipped to do anything.  A few weeks ago Bigbrother, with permission from the authorities, filled the trench with topsoil and scattered grass-seeds on it. Over time the wild grasses and flowers will take over.

 

As he likes to keep everyone in the loop there was some email communications between us all (here are some extracts).

Bentonbag to Bigbrother:-

Just a suggestion, feel free to take no notice.  I'm sure in time wild flower and grass seeds will colonise the new topsoil but might it be an idea to give them a helping hand with a packet of wild seed mix scattered over the top.

 

Bigbrother to Bentonbag:-

Way ahead of you, Youngest Sibling. It’s a nice thought, which I’ve also had, but I’ve bought a pack of lawn grass seed to sow on the grave when I finish it, so it shouldn’t be bare for too long.  

I feel that the lawn grass will ‘fit’ better with the present church yard grass and I’d prefer it if ‘local’ flora colonises the grave, rather than something which may be ‘alien’ to the locals in a wild seed mix.

Also, the church yard is not our land or property. So we would render ourselves liable if something rampant suddenly erupted, couldn’t be controlled/mowed by the Verger, took over the whole place, strangled passing dogs and ate people coming to church.

Just had an idea. Perhaps you could find a nice white (or any) Geordie stone. Bring it down and place it on the grave flower shelf just below the engraved “Semper Fidelis” as a token of your visit.

It can’t do any harm and is unlikely to be blown away. Jews, Moslems and many Christians do it. 

I know they’re FORRIN, but they can’t all be wrong.

 

Bentonbag to Bigbrother:-

I agree with you on the seed front.

I did, momentarily, think of offering my hulking great boys as labour.  But the volume and language used when trying to communicate with them on our last gardening venture would wake the dead and horrify the living.  So I thought better of it.

I have such strong early memories of going with Granma and Grampa, and then just Granma, to put flowers on the graves.  After Grandma died I used to sometimes go up and put on flowers from home by myself.  I find it hard to visit without taking flowers, but the stone idea is a good one, 

I'm forever picking them up at the beach or by the river.

I did actually have a nice stone to take down but left it behind in the chaos of departing and getting everyone else organised.

But as Dad loved the river, and he and Mum and the rest of us spent so many happy times in or near it, I thought a stone from there would work as well.

I scoured the shingle for a suitable pebble and found a white quartz one with flecks of metal in.  Maybe it had washed down from the mines at Pumpsaint and they were bits of gold;  more likely they were bits of Fools’ Gold (iron pyrites).   

It went into my pocket.

Then as I turned to walk back a pink stone caught my eye.

Almost perfectly heart shaped, carved by the river.

 

Bentonbag to Bigbrother:-

In a break with tradition we visited the graves on Tuesday afternoon, not Friday, after a trip to Llansteffan (the tide was almost in) and back avoiding Carmarthen, which seems to be choked with traffic  Thunderthighs and I visited the graves while Fester and Ferretfingers walked up the hill to Cwmifor chapel and school.

There was a man strimming, who was most apologetic and promised he'd "come over and blow the cut bits off now in a minute" but I said it was ok.  I wonder if they were taking part in No Mow May?

 

Thunderthighs put two stones he’d picked up from Llansteffan beach on Mum and Dad’s grave flower shelf.

I put the little white stone in the chippings on our Great-grandparents’ grave.

The flower container on Grampa and Granma’s grave was out of its hole and sitting next to the gravestone. 

I put the heart stone on their gravestone while I picked it up and put it back.

The heart stone looked so at home I didn’t move it.