Life lessons can come in unusual places. For example, when an unscheduled cemetery visit turns into an unexpected service project.
It was Father’s Day evening, and Cooper, our oldest nephew, wanted to visit his grandfather’s final resting place. He had missed the memorial service four years earlier when he was on active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. He was in town now with a large group of family members for my mother’s birthday celebration, so we loaded up three cars and went to Restland.
With me leading the way, we wound slowly through the sprawling cemetery until we came to the section with the empty tomb monument and the words, “He is risen.” It was quiet and still as we walked up to the gravesite. It had been raining off and on over the previous week and the cemetery needed a mowing like most of our yards. Bermuda runners had begun stretching across the flat grave marker, and a few in our group spontaneously began clearing the marker with their hands. Dad was always a stickler for a clean edge along his sidewalks, so he would have appreciated the effort.
After a few moments of quiet conversation and reflection, we were ready to leave when a woman we’d seen visiting a grave maybe 25 yards away walked over and asked if someone could help with their vase. The grave markers at Restland are flat and many have a vase inverted and flush with the marker that can be lifted out, turned right-side-up, and secured into place to hold flowers. The vases can be hard to pull out if they haven’t been used in a while.
I was closest to her and knew about the vases so I followed her over to where an older woman was standing with a bouquet of fresh flowers. As I knelt down and tried to free the vase, I learned the marker was that of her husband; the younger woman who had asked for help was probably her daughter. While I struggled to twist the vase out with my hands, my brother came over and began working the edges with his pocketknife. That wasn’t helping, and soon we were joined by Cooper, his brother Denver, Cooper’s son Lincoln and nephew Jasper. Cooper, the strongest among us, got down on his knees, and gave it a try, and when it wouldn’t budge, he walked back to his truck to get some tools.
While we waited for Cooper to return, I told the women, “You didn’t know it, but when you asked for help, you called in the Marines.” I told them how he had recently retired after 20 years, and the older woman’s face lit up. She said her son-in-law was making a career of the Marines and had served in many of the same hot spots as Cooper.
Back with a hammer, pliers and spanner wrench, Cooper got back to work on the vase. After a lot of banging, clanging, pulling, prying and brute force, the vase finally came up out of what proved to be a gooey, mud-filled receptacle. While Cooper dredged out the muck with his hands, we turned on a spigot nearby with the pliers and washed off the vase, then filled it with water several times to pour on the marker for a good cleaning. And then we filled it one more time for the flowers.
Before it was over, Cooper and the woman had compared notes on Marine deployments. He thanked her son-in-law for his service, and she thanked Cooper for his help, to which he said, “It was an honor.”
I can only imagine what the two women told their friends later about how a gaggle of six men and boys gave them a hand at the cemetery. We weren’t all needed, but everyone pitched in on different parts of the effort, including the two boys. More than just helping, I think they were learning — and us older guys were reminded — what it looks like to provide a little help that means a great deal.
We argue a lot in the public arena about what kids should be learning at school, learning in church, and what they should be preparing for as they become adults. But how often do we give any thought to what they are learning — and what we are teaching them — outside the classroom and sanctuary? What are they learning from us in our daily interactions with servers at restaurants, clerks at stores, drivers in traffic, strangers on the sidewalk or even just visitors at the cemetery?