A Day of Remembering

I awoke Saturday morning with nothing on the schedule. Since it's such a rare event to have nothing going on and Sunday is known as Mother's Day in America, I thought I'd take a little drive to visit my mother.

I know that a cemetery is a place for honoring the person's memory and disposing of their body. So I thought a great way to visit my mother, was to do some of the things that she herself liked to do.

Mom grew up in Northern lower Michigan and upon her departure from this life two years ago, she was returned there to rest next to her parents and siblings.

It's over a two hour drive to where she is laid to rest and since we used to go to that spot to visit her parents graves, I thought we'd do some of the things that she used to do with us kids to make the trip more interesting.

We loaded up the car with a days worth of supplies and laid the back seats flat to give Pugsley more room and a better vantage point to enjoy the ride.

Our first stop was at an old family favorite. A place with a lot of history for my family, A&W drive-up restaurant. Burgers, fries and root beer was a must for all three of us.

Our next stop was a river access point so far out in the middle of no where that cell phone service is non existent. The Riffle River is a clean, spring fed river that runs ice cold even in the heat of summer.

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Summer, it was not. It was a chilly 40 degrees. And with the recent snow melt and rain, the river was running high. The woods around the river will help you to forget any problems that you might have in the real world.

More than 60 years ago there was a road that went through here. Today, only half of the bridge support still exist and has become a favorite place for local kids to leave their mark.

I have many fond memories playing in these rapids. Going up river carrying an inner tube, jumping in and riding the current down past the island and getting out to head back up and do it all again. Over and over we'd ride this swift current.

Visiting here brings me a great deal of happiness. It's a place to rejuvenate the senses.

We left the river and headed up stream to the cemetery where Mom is resting.

Here is her parents head stones and the cement has been poured to receive my mother's stone any day now. It should be in place by the two year anniversary of her death on the 17th.


It's a quiet place in the country.

Poised on top of a hill, there is a view of farms to the east

 and the hills and valleys of the Riffle River to the west.

The small country cemetery recently got a new fence to surround the whole thing, giving it much more of a presence than it previously had.

By the time we had explored a little, left some flowers on Mom's grave and took some photos, it had started to rain. A cold rain that actually turned to snow a little while later. So we jumped back in the car and headed into town for a little shopping for an upcoming trip.

It was all very reminiscent of all the trips made with Mother to these same locations and a great way to reflect on the life that she loved to share with me and the rest of my siblings.