Crocus

I enjoy looking around at the magnificent homes in Hudson on my several trips weekly to the high school. This year is my first time through in spring; Hamilton’s jazz group practices after school twice a week.

Crocus in Hudson.
The house is being repainted.

Last night I pointed out a discovery to Hamilton—a yard full of crocus. It is so wet this year they do not look their best, struggling up through puddles as they are. They made me smile, and remember planting crocus around my brother’s grave. 

Today I enlisted my sister to be the driver when I took pictures. Not to mention, she’s the only person who can still find our little four square of family graves, our brother, our uncle, mom and dad.

Mom and Dad

Uncle Bill and Mel

The four of them are together in Crown Hill cemetery in Twinsburg. I wanted to see if, almost forty years later, there still were crocus around my brother’s plot. I've been to the cemetery three times before. Mom was too pragmatic to take us there when dad was buried; it was twenty below and chest deep snow the winter of ‘77. I do not remember Uncle Bill’s funeral. I do remember Mom’s and Mel's. And, once we took Michelle to show her Grandma’s grave and her dad’s.

The story is the cemetery, not the crocus. I was going to tell how Shelly and I got locked in the cemetery the night we planted them. As we drove Jan said she was sure all crocuses were drowned by now. We arrived, and the poor place looked shabbier than ever. The detritus of winter, soggy all over the grounds.

It’s a perpetual upkeep memorial grounds. It’s always struck me as a Hansel and Gretel kind of place, Crown Hill cemetery, crooked fences, funny stone houses. There are no monuments, only flat markers. That appealed to mom, but it didn't work out so well at Crown Hill.

I wish I knew a little more about the history of the cemetery, but I didn't find much on the internet. I won’t call the office; they want me to preplan my use of the three plots mom gifted me.  They call me so often I may need to see what I do to get rid of them.

When I was a child passing these walls they all were intact. Now they are falling and fallen, sections filled in by old iron fencing. We stopped for a closer look and think the walls were built of old paving stones, blast furnace slag and even big chunks of coal. 

I cannot believe the walls and buildings of a cemetery were folk art fantasy. The cemetery was founded in 1929 and I wonder if the depression influenced the construction.

Instead of planting crocus and being locked in the cemetery, I think I’ll follow up with the story of Mom’s funeral. Everyone has a good funeral story, and I have hers.