My brother-in-law, Gavin P. Coldwell, passed from this world to the next on February 12th. It was a hard death following a hard illness. But that’s not the story I’m going to tell today. Today, I’m going to talk about the first time my sister went to visit the cemetary.
There is a lot of chaos in the days following a person’s death. Because of this, Sunday, February 18th was our first opportunity after the funeral to visit Gavin’s grave. We brought flowers and drove to the back of the graveyard where Gavin’s eternal resting place is located. The site is lovely. It is just behind a statue of an angel and right near a pair of young crepe myrtle trees.
The windchimes sounded softly in the breeze as we sat down at Gavin’s grave. My sister’s eyes were damp, and my chest felt heavy. My sister commented on the flowers left there after the funeral (they were beginning to wilt), and on the wreath laid over his final resting spot (it was simple and beautiful and comforted her a bit). And then, I heard shock and disbelief as she loudly stated, “WHO THE HELL IS CALVIN?” She was pointing at the temporary marker left there. And sure enough, it read “Calvin P. Caldwell.” And then, instead of the tears that we both expected on this first visit, we began to laugh and laugh and laugh.
When you are in the midst of grief, you sometimes find humor in odd places. You see, Gavin never particularly liked his name. He was born in South Africa, and grew up in Great Britain. Once he moved to the USA, he was often called “Kevin” as Gavin is not a common name here in the States. And so we laughed at this misspelling because it seemed so very much like something Gavin would do to try and cheer his widow. Like a practical joke played on us from beyond.
Still, practical joke or not, we couldn’t let that stake stay there! And so, Kathy stood and ripped it out of the ground. “This comes with me,” she said, “and I’m saving the card. But I’m going to repurpose the stake with a snarky saying and place it in my flowerbed.” Then she looked back at the grave, “What do you think of that, CALVIN?” And we were both in stitches again.
The next afternoon, we returned to the funeral home and explained about the stake. The first woman we spoke to was a bit confused as to why we had confiscated it, and she felt certain it could be fixed if we would just return it. “If I bring it back here, I may stab someone with it. I’m quite certain you can just get me a new one! It’s just a cheap stake. And that one is going in my garden” my sister stated. Today, there were tears and anger.
And then, Casie arrived. She helped us with the planning of the service, and she was gracious as she knelt before my sister. She apologized and ensured us another stake would be ready in minutes, and the name would be correct. She also assured us, at my sister’s request, that Jack would have us a full plate of freshly baked Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookies when we returned later that week to order the headstone. (And ONLY chocolate chip cookies! None of those oatmeal raisin ones, please!) It was the least they could do.
On our way out to visit Gavin’s grave, and place the new stake, we passed a pond. Upon the pond were two swans. My sister was wearing a Bob Ross t-shirt, and we stopped and looked at the swans. “This mistake,” she said, “now, it’s birds.” For us, at least, those swans will always be Calvin and Hobbes. We didn’t laugh quite as hard as we had the day before, but we did smile and chuckle a bit as we took some pictures of the birds.
And just in case you were wondering, the cookies were warm and delicious.
Deathwine 