​When I was a little older than Bitzy in my book, Healing the Pain of Silence, the celebration of Memorial Day fell to my father. Mother was in charge of all the other holidays. We were a lucky family, for our soldiers returned home from the wars, pretty much in one piece. So our celebrations turned to the ancestors.
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​ My father’s people were buried in a little country cemetery on the border between Shakerton and Lancaster, Massachusetts—the North Lancaster Burial Ground. Parts of the cemetery are overgrown now, but every other year or so my younger brother, Coppy, will return from New York State and cut the brush. When done, he leaves greenhouse flowers on each ancestral grave.

​When my father was supervising this operation, on the day before Memorial Day, we children went out to the woods with Dad and picked wildflowers. He was strict about what we could take. Lady slippers were the top prize, and yet he made us look for clusters of lady slippers. We could only take one or two from a family group. He never let us cut a single standing flower.  Other people didn’t follow these rules for it is hard to find wild lady slippers in Massachusetts now. You cannot transplant a lady slipper from the forest. They won’t adjust to the new location. (I know, for I tried after my father passed. I didn’t want him telling me, “I told you so.”)

​The other flowers we picked were false Solomon seal and a little pink/lavender flower with two tiny blooms on each stalk. (I’ve looked for the name in my father’s flower books but cannot find it.)  Sometimes there were a few wild violets, but violets don’t survive long when cut. We’d return home with our bounty and clean up, putting the flowers in glass jars filled with water, which my mother had been collecting for this day.

​Instead of going to a parade in town on Memorial Day, we went to the burial ground and dug a hole by each headstone to plant our jars of flowers. The names on the stones go back to the man who came out from the Boston area (still the King’s Land) and claimed a piece of farmland where he built the Walnut Shade Farm—my father’s childhood home. And, of course, as we children looked at each stone, while tracing the name with a finger, my father would launch into a story of who the person was and where they fit into our family tree.

Over the years, this area has become forgotten land with the deserted Army rifle range on one side and the other close to the east/west Route 2. Once, when I was restless, my husband, Sy, asked if I’d like to move back to Shakerton. I wasn’t sure, but I said, “Let’s look and see if we can find a house we like.” When the realtor gave us a list of places to check, he spoke about a new small condo community on the outskirts of town that was almost completed. We found a unit we liked. As I was looking east by the kitchen sink I could see into the old burial ground. Sy came and stood behind me, putting his arms around me, he said, “You know if we bought this unit, you could stand here every day washing dishes and see your grandmother, Jessie’s headstone. You could tell her everything that she had missed since she died before your parents married.” It was a big draw, but not quite enough. I’m happy with the childhood memories of Memorial Day for the Ancestors.

​P.S. This past weekend, my younger brother, Coppy, came down from Amsterdam N.Y., to my home, picked me up, and with the flowers he had in the back of his car, we went to the cemetery in the picture above, the day before Memorial Day. We planted red geraniums for the men in our extended family and pink geraniums for the women. I got to touch my Grandmother Jessie's white grave stone one more time. We also went to the cemetery in Shakerton village, and put a many-flowered pot on my parents grave. We waved a cheery greeting to my daughter, Lynn, who also resides there now. It was a good day!!

Last week I wrote my author’s one page newsletter, A Bird Song. Some of you may have it before you read this. Then I went to my favorite blogger, and wouldn’t you know, her blog that week was about the fact that we have angels with us all the time. They make suggestions, they warn us, they fret over us, I’m sure, but they are real, and they help us if we let them. It felt like Ana Star, the other blogger, and I were on the same wavelength.

Many times these angels or guides have helped me. Once when Sy and I were working at our store, Merlin Books, which you may have read about in my book, A Bird and the Dragon: Their Love Story: A Memoir, I was leaving the store late for an appointment, and had to go a different way than I was used to driving. I’ve been known to put my foot to the floor. I hit the gas extra hard and a voice in my head said, “Watch out for the little red car!” Yeah, right, I thought, but just in case, I slowed as I approached a crossroad about which I had forgotten. At that instant, a little gray sports car shot across the road in front of me in that crossway. If I had been going at my previous speed, he would have T-boned me. And I’d not be here to write this story or the next two.

​​When Sy and I could get away from the store, we’d take a few days or maybe a week to vacation, often going south to visit my sister PollyAnne, and her husband, Bud. Being a Pisces, I am not comfortable unless I’m in just the right spot, so we often don’t make hotel reservations ahead. At four o’clock in the afternoon, I’d give up the driving and get out the AAA books to find our lodgings for the night. This particular afternoon, I made a suggestion of a place to stop, and Sy pulled the car into their parking lot. I got out my pendulum and asked my set of questions. The pendulum said “No” to that place, so we went on. About the fifth time we went through this routine, I could tell Sy had had enough of my “magic” and “just get a place to stay, Lady!” (No, he never said it, but I knew.) We pulled into the parking lot of this pink stucco, somewhat sorry looking, hotel and I said, “I need to go to the ladies’ room. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”  I went, and when done, I pulled out my pendulum and started the questions. It nearly jumped out of my hands with the “yeses.” Triumphantly, I went back to the car. “We are to stay here,” I told Sy. He looked at me and didn’t say it, but I could see he thought I was crazy. We registered, dragged our stuff up to the second floor, and I checked which bed was right for us. Sy went over to the wall of windows, covered with floor-to-ceiling drapes, and pulled them apart. He stepped back for me to take a look, and there we were looking out upon the Atlantic Ocean. In the water below, a pod of dolphins were cavorting or fishing for supper. I don’t know which. It doesn’t matter. It was one of the most breathtaking sights I’ve ever seen. They raced, leaped into the air, chased after each other, and most definitely put on a spirit-lifting display. “Sy, look!” I said, perhaps hoping for a little forgiveness for my quirkiness. He stood beside me, his arm around my shoulders while we watched. “I guess this is where we are meant to be,” he said.

​The show repeated itself the next morning when we
went down to the restaurant for breakfast. Looking out
the same way onto the ocean from our table, we could
see the dolphins showing off for us. Now, ask me
​about angels or guides.

 

My last story took place at our cottage on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. My mother was living with us, and we had made arrangements for her to have her oxygen tanks delivered to the cottage, while we vacationed there. It was the first night of our stay. Mother was all tucked into the spare bedroom on the west side of the living room while we were in the master bedroom on the south side of the house. As usual, I was in the bathroom for my first break from sleep. I’m sitting on the toilet and sleepily looking down at the red shag rug under my feet. There between my feet I see a thread curled around on the rug. I notice that the thread forms O2. That’s strange, I thought. I was the last one to bed and that thread wasn’t there before. I wonder what it means. And who put it there? It was bizarre enough that I risked waking up Sy. “Honey, I hate to wake you, but there is a strange thread on the rug in the bathroom.” “What? What do you mean?” he asked. “Come look for yourself.” 

​We are both now standing at the bathroom door, staring down at this lonely thread on the rug. Suddenly, Sy says, “It’s your mother’s oxygen! Somehow she isn’t getting her oxygen!”
With that he raced to my mother’s room and reached around on the floor to feel for the plastic tubes carrying oxygen to my sleeping mother. By now, I had the flashlight and was holding it for him. My mother had managed to pull two of the hoses apart and she was not getting any oxygen! With the help of the flashlight, Sy quickly reattached the hoses, checked that they were not wrapped around her, and we went back to bed.
 
That event was so strange that we never really ever talked about it. There was no need to worry
 my mother, so we kept the story to ourselves until now.
 
So, yes, I do believe there are angels around us here to help. I usually call them guides, and I
have seen special photographs that show orbs of light around my head. The photo of Sy is the
 same; only the colors are different. We are not alone on this journey. We simply need to be
open to seeing and receiving help when we need it. Who they are and why they chose to do
this work is for another blog.