My sister is an expert at wrapping the wreaths with twine and fastening them to the gravestones, so that from a few feet away they look magically suspended and as festive as a tombstone can ever look. Fifteen minutes or so and we were done and the graves looked Christmassy, and most importantly, as if they were loved. And they were. And still are.

     When Jennie and I were small girls, we were fascinated by a small stone near my grandparents grave. It was a lamb, sitting alone amongst the larger gray stones, the grave of a wee girl, dead before we were born. We would sit by it as if we could give comfort somehow, fascinated by her too brief time on this earth. Back then her grave had flowers and small toys. But now, so many years later, just the little lamb, smaller even than in memory, the caretakers most likely gone to join her. Dear little lamb.

     When I was a rebellious teenager I thought going to the graves to “visit a bunch of dead people who don’t even know you’re there” was a terrible inconvenience. I had things to do. Important things. Nails to polish. Hair to set. “But they don’t even know we’re here,” I’d tell my mother. Endlessly. Boringly.

     And I was probably right. I doubt they knew then or know now that we are there, decorating all we have left for the season. But of course, that is completely irrelevant. We tend the graves for the living, not for the dead. Because for that bit of time that we are there, fussing about them, prettying them up, talking to them, it’s all about us. It’s about feeling their presence, paying homage, about saying thank-you, Mamma, for all the times you sat with me when I was sick, for the best Christmasses and birthdays any child could have and for the wonderful chocolate cake you made with the white fluffy icing that took such a long time to make but I loved it and so you always made it no matter how tired you were, and thank you Pappa for teaching me to ride my bike and making me aware of all the little things that live in the woodlands that we need to respect and for being funny and sitting on the lawn chair and waiting for us after we were long moved away with our own young families and looking up when the car pulled into the driveway and smiling this forever smile and even when you were so, so sick, getting up off that chair and saying – “Hey, babe, good to see you! Glad you came!” as if this visit was the best thing in the world, ever.

     And so we tend those graves because for just those few moments we can give a little back. We can gather you round us, although, truthfully, you are always with us, because we loved you so and love is eternal, no matter what the cynics may say. And because we humans need to fuss over that which we love. Tending to the graves is never a bother, it is a comfort, a time when we can remember and hold them close. And fuss a bit over them the way they always fussed over us. Oh these holidays. So happy. So melancholy.

     Great movies at the Dietrich this weekend. Lincoln and The Hobbit! Run, don’t walk, to the best little movie theater in the world!

     See you at the Dietrich.