Remembering on Memorial Day

Every year Denisa, her two sisters, and their Mother take a girl's trip. This year, the four of us decided to have a short trip together before Denisa and Mark left on our extended summer trip. 

Over sixty years ago, Denisa's mother had promised her mother that she would decorate the family's graves each Memorial Day. That responsibility has grown to 37 graves in four different cemeteries, and has gotten to be a big job for a 93-year-old. So we used our girl-trip time to help. One of the main stops was in Liberal, Kansas, where Betty's parents are buried.

That's also where our Father is buried, and Mother wanted a picture of her three daughters there. We were remembering on this chilly Memorial Day. We would drive to three states and four cemeteries, decorating graves that included some people that died even before our 93-year-old Mother was born!

We also had some fun, including eating out and shopping. While in Liberal, Kansas, we took a little tour that highlights a movie that coined the phrase, "We're not in Kansas any more, Toto." The Wizard of Oz Museum includes a tour of a little farm house decorated like the one in the movie, with Dorothy as our tour guide.

The museum includes props from the filming of the movie in 1939. This was the actual little farm house model that was used for an important scene. This prop-sized house spun round and round in mid-air, and then smashed the wicked witch of the East when it came down for a rough landing in the land of Oz. It was the best cinema special effects available in 1939.

While we bought tickets for the museum and the Wizard of Oz experience tour, visitors can walk around the outdoor property for photo ops for free.

While Denisa was spending time with her family, Mark went with his mother to decorate graves as well. But the flowers at the cemetery weren't the only things blooming. 

The Engelmann cacti are blooming at the Engelman ranch as well. If you squint your eyes, you can see the motor home across the pasture, parked beside Mark's mother's house.

When we arrived in Oklahoma in the middle of April, there were no flowers in this pasture, and no green grass. The parched grass was brown from the continued drought, and Mark's brother was still feeding the cattle hay because there was no grass for them to eat. But a steady stream of rain showers has changed this place to green in the past month and a half since we arrived. It doesn't look like the same landscape, and we are glad that this land has finally been blessed with rain.

On another day, Denisa and her sisters visited our 104-year-old aunt, and later we made German veranikas. We were remembering our family heritage and elders on this week preceding Memorial Day. In the middle of all the holiday fun, we remembered the people that fought for our freedom. Our mother's brother was killed in World War II, and we decorated his grave with red, white, and blue flowers. We remembered on Memorial Day that not all those that fought for our freedom got to come home.