Life in the Garden

Matters of Life and Death

Memorial Service Ideas

Classic Style Urn Selection

When the family can’t agree on a urn style for the deceased, sometimes the simplest choice is the Classic Bronze cremation urn. Ancient design and clean lines of this funeral urn never goes out of style. These metal urns are available in three sizes, a full-size adult, a smaller sharing, youth or pet urn, and a 3″ keepsake size. What’s a keepsake urn, and why would you one? Some families might be sprinkling or want to keep a small amount or the ashes, a lock of hair or dried flowers.

Classic Bronze Urn

The Classic urn is brass with a brushed bronze or pewter finish and secure threaded lid. The adult size measures 10″ high, and weighs a solid 7 pounds.

Urn Garden Cremation Urns

Thank you for letting us serve you.

In Loving Memory

memorial day postcard

This is the first year that we did not decorate graves of our friends and family at the cemetery. Usually on Memorial Day, I take Etta out to the White Chapel Cemetery. Yesterday, I asked her if she felt guilty about not going. She said she didn’t. She’d just try to do better through the year.

This is also the first year in a long time that she didn’t go back to her home state of Oklahoma for her high-school reunion.

When we were younger, rain or shine, Memorial Day was always a big party, and we worked in the tradition of honoring the dead. Since the death of his mother, my husband has never wanted to go back. Since we’re not Keith Richards and we don’t party like we used to, Memorial Day is kind of quiet around here. It’s been stormy which has put a damper on some of the bar-b-cues. At least we missed the killer tornadoes. This morning’s trivia question on the local news was, “What was the original name of Memorial Day?” The anchors were stumped. They “knew it but couldn’t remember.”

I’ve known some older people that make a day of decorating the graves over the holiday. Picnics and tail gate parties at the cemetery. As we move away from this ritual, it feels so “Civil War”. But I do miss going, the cemetery is lovely, and White Chapel Memorial Garden has the Walk of Flags that is so moving.

White Chapel Memorial Gardens 2004

Ghost Bike Memorials

ghost bike

Supposedly, this is the first Ghost Bike, memorializing an accident on Holly Hills Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003. It was created by Patrick Van Der Tuin who saw a cyclist hit by a car. A few days later, he and his friends locked up several bikes at locations where he knew cars had collided with cyclists.

A Ghostbike is a junker bike that has been painted stark white and affixed to the site where a cyclist has been hit or killed by a car driver. Ghostbikes are intended to be memorials for the fallen and reminders to everyone to SHARE THE ROAD with one another. Since that first memorial in St. Louis, the meme has spread nationwide.

ghost bike

I’ve never seen one here in the Ozarks, and I hope I never do. But in densely populated areas like St. Louis, Portland, and New York City there seems to be more Ghost Bike sightings.

Check out this wild ride!

Today’s Tip: Ride Safe and Share the Road!