Tomorrow is a Gift

Elaine Williams ©2008

My husband chose to be cremated, and to that end I had arranged a time for friends and family to gather for a memorial service in remembrance. I gathered pictures of our twenty plus years together, creating a wonderful collage in pictures for the service.

On this evening, the hospice doctor who visited regularly spoke of my husband as he had come to know him during his illness. Friends and family were invited to add their remembrances, and I silently appreciated each of them. My sister-in-law read a short eulogy I had written in respect and love for our life together, because for once, I felt frail instead of strong. I knew I would not be able to read it myself. Overall, the day became a moving and inspiring tribute to a man who had cared about many.

My husband, being an avid sportsman, had wished to have his ashes put into a black powder rifle and shot up into our grassy back pasture. One overcast day in November, about six months after his passing, we fulfilled this final wish. With close family and a few friends, a buddy of my husband’s loaded the rifle four times, once for myself and then once for each of our boys. We shot the ashes up into the overcast sky and across the field. The remainder of the ashes I divided and we then scattered them as our final goodbye.

Even though my husband was cremated, I decided to purchase a headstone in his memory. I felt it was important for my kids to know there was a tangible testament to their father. I had it inscribed with his nickname, and a rearing stag, which I knew my husband and kids would appreciate. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t buried in the ground beneath that stone. The stone told the world, and his children, he had been alive and meant something to all of us.

I prepared the grave site myself for the stone placement. I brought my shovel and buckets of crushed stone, dug up a small area, placed the crushed stone in the hole, then carefully placed a smooth piece of two-inch thick bluestone for the base. It had taken me a week to chisel across the bottom of the stone: “Tomorrow is a gift.” When I carved the first letter “T”, being relatively unfamiliar with using stone chisels, the “T” ended up looking a little odd.

The day the company delivered the head stone was overcast, and as I drove toward the cemetery, the skies grew threateningly darker by the moment. The two men used a hoist to lower the headstone into place, but as they were almost finished, the skies suddenly opened and rain pelted down with unbelievable force. I watched as they quickly lowered the stone, and it dropped the last inch or so. I fearfully checked the base, afraid it might have cracked, but luckily it had not. The men left, and I stood in the rain looking at the crooked headstone. As the rain poured around me, I carefully straightened it and then satisfied, I ran to my car for shelter. I just sat there staring at the headstone, my body chilled and my mind blank. As I drove home, the sun appeared and steam rose from the wet summer pavement.

At the time, my youngest son was ten and still in Sunday school. He would take his snack in the quaint little cemetery each Sunday after class and eat it on the stone wall next to his father’s headstone.

In the early days, feeling lost or at a particularly low moment, I would visit the cemetery and sit by the stone. Even though I knew he wasn’t there, I would talk to my husband about the fears or problems I currently faced.

My two older boys never mentioned visiting the small, tree-shaded cemetery. If they had, they kept it to themselves. Perhaps they will share this with me at some time in the future. There’s also the possibility they may never mention it. We’ve all learned to deal with different points of pain in our grief process.

For myself, I still occasionally go to the cemetery, especially in the Fall. I carefully brush away any debris from the stone’s base, so I can see the carved inscription.

“Tomorrow is a Gift” is a reminder that today and each day is a gift not to be taken lightly.