Memorial Day in Elmwood

Mom, watering Gramma's flowers

This photo was taken on 5/23/09 – Memorial Day.  It started out as a beautiful sunny day so my Mom, sister Karen and her kids, and I went out to my Mom’s hometown Elmwood, NE.  My niece Naomi had a dance recital in the area, so we went to see her dance first and then chatted with my brother Tony and his wife Deb in the parking lot for a while.  So by the time we left there to visit the graves, the weather was taking a turn for the worse.

You could see a wall of storms moving in, so we tried to get around to all of the graves so I could take pictures of the tombstones.  We had taken Peonies and Iris from the garden to put by the graves, and were paying tribute and listening to Mom’s stories as we went along. 

I was taking a picture of the last one when the rain finally started coming down… hard!  The flags were practically blowing off their poles and the rain was coming down sideways.  I yelled to Mom, “Here it comes!!” and we ran for the minivan, getting inside just as it started pouring outside.  Mom and I sat there for a minute laughing at how we got there just in time, when she looked down at the cupholder and saw that the big glass of water she had brought for the flower vase at her Mom’s headstone was still full. (oh, no…)

I need to water Mom’s flowers!

She looked a little panicked and I could tell that there was no way that I was going to be able to talk her out of it.  But I sure tried!  

 “Just give it a minute and it’ll be full of rainwater!  It’s pouring out there!  You’ll catch pnemonia!  What kind of person waters flowers in a rainstorm?!”

But she wouldn’t have it.  So she grabbed the big cup of water and hopped out of the van, then took off running towards her Mom’s grave.  I could just picture the look on Karen’s face as she watched Mom run between our vehicles and out to Gramma’s grave. 

All I could think to do was stick my camera out the window and snap this picture of my super-crazy, rain-running, flower-watering, mom-loving Mom.