Earliest Memorial Memory

My First Memorial Experience

By Cory Smith

               My earliest recollection of visiting a memorial is vague because I was only seven at the time and don’t remember much about anything back at that age.  My family takes an annual trip to Northwest Pennsylvania to visit my dad’s relatives, and on this particular trip we went to visit the cemetery where my great-grandfather was buried.  He lived into his 80s, but I never got to know him personally as he died a short time after I was born.  Anyway, my dad took me, my two younger brothers, and my great-grandmother (who is now approaching 96 years old) to the small cemetery.  The drive out there makes me feel like we’re going towards an endless array of grassy fields, just one after the other.  There’s nothing around the cemetery, and the only way you would notice it was there is via a sign by the road that says “Rockville Cemetery”.  There are few plots in the graveyard, but two of them belong to my family.  My great-grandmother had brought flowers with her and I remember her placing them there, and as she was doing so began to tear up.  We were silent as she closed her eyes and said a quick prayer, and we were there maybe 20 minutes in all.  I don’t remember feeling particularly sad because I did not know my great-grandfather very well, but I can only imagine the sadness it brings to my great-grandmother, especially because she knows she does not have much time left.