Huck-A-Buck Chronicles: MikeBo’s Blog
Sunny 60°F/ 16°C in Riverhead, NYCloudy 63°F/17°C in Cedar Park, TX
Dzień dobry, każdy!
Good Morning, Everybody!
[An earlier version of this story first
appeared on the day following Halloween in 2014.]
Buenas
Dias,
Today is
the first day of November…the day after Halloween….All Saints Day. It is also El Día de los Muertos or
The Day of the Dead. It’s
a national holiday throughout Mexico, and it’s widely observed |
| Dana, Mike, Michael Botula at Mary and Charles Gravesite |
September 27, 2013 - Roanoke Avenue Cemetery, Riverhead, New York
I had been gone from my home town most of
my adult life. While I had been born in New York City, I had grown up in
Riverhead and went all the way through high school here. I had come here one
sunny day in April of 1961 with my brother Packy, and our father Charles to
bury our mother, Mary. On another sad day in November of 1965 my brother and I
returned to bury our father, Charles. Following their funerals, my brother
Packy and I set to the task of closing up the home where we had grown up and
get it ready to be sold. An unseen gate slammed shut on our idyllic childhood,
and we both moved on with our lives. Now, on this sunny day in September forty
eight years later, “Skip” and Charlie Botula are still resting in their quiet
place marked by two granite headstones, their repose shaded by an old oak tree.
It’s not quite November 1st, but this is now my own personal Día de los Muertos. After visiting my parents’ graves, I walk along the path through the cemetery. My stroll takes me on a tour of my childhood.
Across the way from mom and dad is “Papa Nick” Meras, the smiling Greek man
whose family still runs the confectionary where we used to gather after school.
Down the way is my third grade teacher, Ramsey Walters. Around the bend is my
old scoutmaster, Alton Medsger. Across the way, in a plot marked by a tall
granite monument are my parents’ best friends, Fred and Beverly Alexander.
Glancing down at the headstones as I walk along, I see so many family friends.
Saturday April 29, 1995-Calvary Cemetery - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
I had come to this gravesite for the first time in
1947 with my father when I was six years old. It was the first time that death
had touched our family, and I was overwhelmed by my grief. My dad’s brother,
Adolf had died suddenly at the family homestead on Ward Street. Forty eight
years later I had returned to say farewell to my dad’s other brother, my
beloved Uncle Ted. My own dad was not here – he and my mother had passed away
thirty years before and were buried back in my home town. For me, the two
gravesite visits were like placing bookends on either side of important volumes
of my family’s history. I viewed the moment as a flashback with the scene
beginning in a chaotic drama in black and white and quickly flashing forward in
time to a similar but continuing as a contemporary drama in full color. As is
the custom in many Roman Catholic cemeteries, we said goodbye to Uncle Ted at a
short service in the cemetery chapel and then we left to let the graves crew do
its job. There were no graveside goodbyes. After the chapel farewells, my
cousins, my brother and I among them, decided on our own to visit the family
gravesite. There are three generations of Botula’s buried at this plot, there
are other family members resting nearby. It wasn’t a Dia de los Muertos visit, that’s not part of my Czech heritage, but
the sentiment was the same. For the cousins, Packy, Anna Marie, Richard and
Frank and me, this became our own brief reunion. We were a close-knit group of
cousins, and, we hadn’t been together in many years. Uncle Ted’s passing was a
signal moment in the story of our family.
Maybe it’s because of my own love of history, but I love to visit old
cemeteries. There are so many stories there. The catacombs, church crypts and necropoli of Rome, colonial era
cemeteries along the eastern seaboard of the United States, Gold Rush and
Frontier cemeteries in California, Nevada and Arizona. Our own Arlington
National Cemetery. There is the small family gravesite behind an old Victorian
home in Mariposa, California. The people that own the house acquired the small
family burial ground when they acquired the property and now care for it with
the same loving care as if it sheltered members of their own family. I think as
I walk along that the history of any society lives in its cemeteries.
After all my adventures in life, I now
understand that this is where I must return some day, even as a symbolic gram
or two of ash. Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem comes to my mind.
''This be the verse you
grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.''
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.''
October
31, 1992 Halloween – Santa Ana Cemetery - Santa Ana, California
Now, let’s go back to a sunny Saturday afternoon on Halloween weekend 21
years before. My wife, Donna and I are on a guided walk through the old,
historic cemetery in Santa Ana, California. Our walk takes us past the graves
of many notable local historical figures. There are mayors, prominent members
of the clergy; a famous Sheriff, Theo Lacy, is buried here, too. The headstones
read like a “Who’s Who” of our county. As we walk along, we notice something
else. Here and there, people have gathered for what appears to be a picnic.
They’ve spread blankets at the gravesites and set down their picnic baskets.
Most of them have placed bouquets of flowers at the headstones with lighted
candles. I see them praying, saying grace and then lifting glasses in their
toasts. Curious, I approach a family gathered around one of the graves. “Good
afternoon,” I greet them. Nice day for a picnic, isn’t it? They smile
and nod. But, why have a picnic in a cemetery? I ask. El Dia de los
Muertos,” the woman said in a soft, accented voice. It is El Día de los Muertos, or The Day of the Dead. Today, we come to the cemetery to honor
members of our families who have passed on and to pray for them. She continued. We want to let them know that even though
they have left this life, they are still part of our family. I had never
heard of such a custom. The woman went on to explain to me that it is a holiday
in Mexico and more important to Mexican culture than Halloween itself. I was
quite moved.
In our society, visits to loved one’s graves
can be infrequent and generally very brief. Flowers can be placed at the
headstone and a prayer said. But, long spans of time can pass before a return
visit is made, if ever. Gone forever and easily forgotten. At that moment, I
realized that I had not visited my parents resting place in more than 30 years.
Our cemetery walk this day took place on Halloween. The next day would be the
first day of November, All Saints Day and El Dia de los Muertos. I could feel the
connection here. I could almost hear the grandmother talking to her family as
they picnicked six feet above her. I could feel the love and respect these
family members were showing their loved ones. Later, as we continued along our
walk, I thought of my own parents who were buried far away from where I lived
now and made a promise to myself to
honor them one day in the tradition of El Dia de los Muertos.
Friday, October 19, 2018 - Roanoke Avenue
Cemetery, Riverhead, New York
Now,
it is the weekend of my 60th Anniversary of my graduation from
Riverhead High School, and I have brought my son Michael and my daughter Dana
with me on this visit to my home town. Michael is accompanied by his wife Laura.
Michael accompanied me on a similar pilgrimage in 2003. Neither Dana nor Laura
has ever been to Riverhead. Neither Michael nor Dana had ever known their
grandparent. “Skip” and Charles Botula had both died by the time my children
had been born.
Michael
and Laura had flown in from Rome to attend the reunion with me. Dana had flown
up from Austin, Texas with me. Now, we were going to keep an appointment that
was not on the reunion schedule of events. First a stop at the Riverhead Flower
Shop on East Main Street, where I ordered two small bouquets for the visit to
the cemetery. Then we drove along Main
Street toward our lunch destination in Aquebogue a few miles to the east of downtown.
Along
the way I pointed out landmarks that were part of my growing-up years. There
was the Methodist Church on the left, where the entire family attended, and I
had gone to Sunday School. Across the street, still there, was the Rendezvous
Restaurant, my favorite watering hole as I became an adult. As we drove
eastward, I continued to point out the landmarks that were part of my childhood.
Just over the railroad tracks, still standing, was the apartment building that
my parents moved into when they first
came to Riverhead in 1940. Then, a short distance down Main Street, just past the old A & P Supermarket that had
been converted into the new Riverhead Town Hall, was the little house where my
brother Packy and I had grown up. The little house, now obscured from view by
shrubs and trees is still there. A few miles to the east, on the right side of
the Main Road, I pointed out Aquebogue Elementary school, where I had attended
first grade at five years of age, because the school did not offer a
kindergarten program. Then, we arrived
at our lunch destination, the Modern Snack Bar, which has been feeding eastern Long
Islanders its famous menu of home cookery since 1950.
After lunch, we
drove back into town to pick up to the bouquets for our trip to the cemetery.
Then, in the tradition of El día de los muertos,
it was time for my son
and daughter to visit their grandparents. Michael and Dana placed the flower bouquets
at the sides of the gravestones, and Dana scraped away the moss that had begun to form. As I pointed
out the headstones of other family friends and neighbors nearby, I explained
that the tradition of El día de los muertos, is not a time for grieving. It is, in
fact, a family reunion. In that
moment, I truly understood what the Mexican woman had told me in the Santa Ana
Cemetery years earlier. This has now become part of my own family’s tradition,
even though my trips back to my home town usually don’t coincide with El
Dia de los Muertos on the first of November. And, it has more meaning for me than the Halloween celebration.
Dziękuję,MikeBo
[Mike Botula, the author of LST
920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target! is a retired broadcast
journalist, government spokesperson and media consultant. Mike’s book is available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble
Books. You can read more about Mike Botula at www.mikebotula.com]
© Mike Botula
2018
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