A Last Goodbye

Mom and Dad on October 15, 2007

Mom's birthday (82) and Dad was 83

 Those happy days as pictured above are over. It's up to us now to make our own happiness. But those two were the lights of my life and I know it's going to be a struggle. Dad died on May 25, 2011 and Mom died on October 29, 2017.
 We've had Dad's ashes here since his death. I always told Mom that we'd hold them until she joined him and then we'd bury the two together.

May 9, 2018

 I had to deliver both cremains to Jeff Sanner (Sanner Funeral Home in West Carrollton, Ohio) on May 9. I sat them both by the back door. Dad and Mom would have both had a laugh that their final hours at Pinehaven was beside the toaster,

 Jeff ordered a fiberglass box to enclose both cremains, left inside their wooden urns. He said he took this picture so I could see how they were placed. He then sealed the box.

 He took the box to Hill-Grove Cemetery in Miamisburg for burial. We held this gathering on Friday, May 11, 2018. Sadly it was Mother's Day weekend.

 I took this picture as the cemetery worker placed the box in the ground. He said the hole was dug to a depth of about thirty inches. That leaves the top of the box not far underground.

 Looking down into the hole a last time, the box was placed at a slight angle and favored Dad's side of the tombstone.

 Attending the burial were Bonnie (l-r) and Sam Owens, dear family friends, Bob, Jeff Sanner and Tom, my partner. Tom, of course, has been a great solace to me these past months since Mom's death.

 I was asked if I wanted to place the first shovelful of soil in the hole and I stepped up and did the deed. I'd rather have done about anything else. Here the cemetery worker fills the hole manually. He said the soil would be topped off and sod laid in the week ahead.

 Tom and I left before the others. We were standing at my grandparents grave when I took this shot.

 And so an era ends ...