I'll Bring You Flowers

Last weekend my family and I were in Ohio, the state where I was born. We visited the graves of my brother, Jim, and my mom. For 24 years Jim cleaned, flowered and cared for our mom’s grave.   My mom’s headstone looks good at 25 My sister and I will now repay him—at least in a part-time, we-live-out-of-state sort of way, by adorning his headstone. It’s fitting that in lieu of a dash, his life is marked by a shamrock. He lived with a flourish, to the very last day./Photo by Matthew Cowan We think he’d be happy that his final resting place is beneath a big, old tree, and that he’s in a busy part of the cemetery. To his right is an infant girl. I like to think of them comforting each other. I’ve spent a lot of time at this Cleveland cemetery./Photo by Matthew Cowan