Decoration

Today my mom, sister, and I traveled to Alabama. We went to the church my grandmother went to when she was alive, we went to my cousin's wedding shower, and then we went to decoration. Now, I have gone to decoration all my life, but it didn't take me long to figure out it wasn't something that everyone does. Decoration is at the cemetery, and each cemetery has one weekend a year set aside for this.You go to the cemetery and you put flowers on the graves of your loved ones. In the old days, you would come and decorate the graves, have an all-day singing, and dinner on the ground. Nowadays most people come and put their flowers out and that's it. Today we went to five different cemeteries. Some of their decoration dates aren't really until next weekend, but we put our flowers out this weekend since we were in town. I realize this sounds strange to most of you, but it really is a neat tradition. The cemeteries look beautiful with all the fresh flowers, and it's a time for some of us in the younger generations to learn our family history and to hear stories of family members we never got to meet.