Did I tell you my mother graveyard thing? My mother is buried in Arlington National Cemetery because my father is a Navy officer. So, one day during therapy, the first 9 years :-) I was living in Washington, D.C. so drove over there, probably 1979ish and went in the office and they gave me a map and "address" where my mother was buried. I found the grave and there was a marker for the "site" for my father next to her, when he would die. Great. I "memorized" the site in my mind's eye, it was near a lovely holly tree on Pershing Drive :-) and she was buried under her maiden name! Weird. I had never though of her as having a life before I was born :-)

So time passes, my father dies in 1992 and has the whole military, horsedrawn, caisson and 18 gun salute, the works; uniformed Marines, military honor stuff. It all takes place up on "top" in a special area because the actual gravesite is down the side of a steep hill so we don't stay for the burial, no place to stand, it's November, horrible drizzly day (perfect for a funeral). We have the reception/wake afterwards in the club of the nearby Army fort.

Months pass, summer comes around and my stepmother asks me to take her to see the gravesite. Fine. I drive her over, get out and they've moved my mother. I can't find the gravesite. I'm 42 years old, roaming across a huge hillside reading graves, almost accidentally calling "Mommy, where are you?" :-) and almost in tears but almost laughing it's so very ridiculous to be 42 and lose your mother. . . again.

I did find them, finally; the cemetery had totally "redone" the hill, reburied everyone and shifted things around, etc. so there was more room since they're nearly out. My stepmother was worrying about what they would put on her tombstone so we were reading wives tombstones (my mother had been renamed by her married/my father's name and was listed as my father's last rank wife even though my father was two ranks lower when she died. My stepmother didn't want to be "beloved wife of. . ." or whatever but she and I never figured out what she did want and I think we just left it to the military; they have an automatic "sentiment" I think, probably "beloved wife of. . ."