finding my father

The new grey granite Headstone marking the grave of my Father’s parents in the Fremantle cemetery stands upright. Twelve months before my father died he paid to have his parent’s grave tidied up and the head stone refurbished. He didn’t realize how soon he would be ready to go to his last resting place. However, things didn’t work out exactly as he had planned. When my father succumbed to a stroke in 1999 my brother was in charge of all the funeral arrangements and his burial site. I trusted him. After all how difficult can it be to ensure a person’s ashes are placed where they are intended? For some time afterwards I imagined my father resting peacefully with his ancestors in the recently restored family grave.

I am not one for visiting cemeteries unless I have to attend a funeral or am doing some genealogy research. This however, happens infrequently. Although, in the last twelve months, I have been to more funerals than in the last ten years.
One day, my husband Jamie and I decided to go and visit father’s grave with my cousin. We found the gravesite with the name of my father’s parents and long gone brothers and sisters. Imagine our consternation when we saw no mention of my father. He was not where he should have been.

We decided the best option was to split up and search for him; well…. his resting place anyway. Fremantle cemetery was established in 1896, so there were many graves to peruse. Jamie and my cousin began searching all the headstones in the Baptist section. I walked across to the Methodist section where my mother’s ashes had been interred with her parents. No, there was no father there.
Slowly I continued my quest, enjoying the peace and quiet as I strolled through this last resting place of so many people. I wondered about those who had once lived and loved, worked, now gone, living on only in the memories of families and friends left behind.

Some graves had been left bare and desolate for years. Others were covered in plastic flowers, (dust collectors are what my mother called them). Some were tended often with tender loving care, as evidenced by the vases of fresh flowers and lack of weeds.
Yet others were worn with the passing of time, their named almost erased. No longer were there any loved ones left alive to tend their graves.
The inscriptions reminded me that death has no respect for age. The graves of little children and babies were identified by the statues of angels. Some born in the early days of settlement when the dry harsh land had been too hard and they had succumbed to illnesses that are unheard of these days.

I looked up at the sky washed in a multitude of hues; dusk was approaching. In the distance, a glimpse of the Indian Ocean reflecting the sun’s rays could be seen.
Suddenly I was brought back into the present when my mobile phone rang.
‘Come back,’ said Jamie. ‘We have found your father.’ Of course he meant the place where his ashes had been buried. I hurried back and as I ran I noticed some people looking at me as though running is out of place in a cemetery. Which I dare say might be. I hurried through the grounds, past the large trees, their leaves dappled by the fading sunlight. Branches spread out, protecting, covering those who lay beneath. Finally I reached the pair. They were quite close to the family gravesite but at a different grave.

Instead of being buried with his parents my father’s ashes had been placed with another part of our family, a part that we had long ago lost contact with. Standing and gazing at the spot we were very impressed.
Hi Dad’, I whispered, I thought of all the words we’d never said, now left unspoken.
‘Perhaps you can get to know these long lost relations,’ was all I could say.
‘This is a lovely spot’, murmured my cousin. ‘I wouldn’t mind being buried here.’
‘Neither would I’ was my husband’s response.
The grave was under a huge tree with shade for protection during our hot summers. It was only a few metres away from my father’s family and my mother’s grave was close by. I could imagine him peacefully at rest during the long nights, close to his family. Perhaps even closer than in life.

We decided not to have his ashes moved. We would leave my father where he was.
I don’t suppose the current occupant is really bothered, although I do wonder what the owners of the grave think when they visit and see a person with the same name as theirs, yet a stranger, buried in their family plot.