Visiting Graves

[steambender]

Leaving small memorial stones is traditional for Jews. I have several generations of family on both sides in local cemeteries, and fathers parents are buried in the jewish section of the large and quite beautiful city cemetery. you can tell who gets regular family visits from the collection of small stones on the headstones. I collect interesting little stones when I travel, and try to remember to take them when I visit his grave. he's buried with my mother's family in a beautiful little country cemetery that goes back to before the civil war, and is a great place for summer picnics.

My eldest brother married into the jewish faith, and when he was buried in the national cemetery outside Dallas, I got one of the empty shell casings from the honor guard and put that on his headstone a year later. If I don't bring anything special, I'll look around and find a small stone. It's a remembrance.