Forest Lawn Memorial Park - Glendale, CA

In the early part of the last century my great-grandparents bought enough plots at Forest Lawn Memorial Park to bury several generations of Surlys.  It never occurred to them that the later generations would find the idea of being confined to a coffin for eternity nightmarish and claustrophobic.  We, the younger generation, prefer the fires of a crematorium.  Probably because we all know we're winding up on a plantation in Hell when the end comes.  Either that or the Hearse Song we all sang as kids gave us the creeps. 

 Forest Lawn Memorial Park is home to some illustrious guests: L. Frank Baum, Lon Chaney, Sr., Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Walt Disney, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Spencer Tracy, and three generations of Surlys.  Michael Jackson is buried there too, which kinda cheapens the whole thing for me.  The place had enough tourists before.  Heck, the damn place is a theme park of the dead. The first of the Surlys to be buried there was my Great Uncle Forbes who died in the 1920's of something he picked up abroad as a solider.  His uniform was kept in a cedar-lined drawer of an armoire that sat in my grandparent's living room for over 50 years, as my great-grandmother forbade my grandmother to dispose of it until after her own death.  Being horrible grandchildren we played dress-up in it when my grandmother wasn't looking.

Over the years the plots have been filled with the remains of my grandmother's parents, both my grandparents, my mother's twin brother, and my uncle's first wife.  A portion of my sister Parrish's ashes are buried alongside in a small hole my mother dug a few years ago.  The rest of her was cast into the sea outside of our beach house in a traditional surfer's paddleout burial at sea.   If you've never seen one, you are missing out.  50 people on surfboards slapping the water while hooting, hollering, and throwing leis into the water. But I digress.  We're here to talk about defiling graves.

 Every year, as far back as I can remember, my grandmother and my mother made an annual pilgrimage to the cemetery at Christmas to put flowers and wreathes alongside the headstones.  Since my grandmother passed away my mother continues the tradition, usually with one of her grandchildren and our Tia Consuelo. (Tia was my grandmother's housekeeper for 30 years and is the Guatemalan equivalent of Mammie to my family.)  In my grandmother's day the wreathes were a class act.  Tactfully decorated with red ribbons.  In my mother's hands, well, let's just say she's put her own stamp on them.

Tia Consuelo

My niece Bubba tossing tinsel

Bubba and my mother's friend Dianne decorating the tree nearby
(They defile Dianne's family's plots when they are finished with ours.)

Bubba more than a little pleased with her act of sacrilege

They even defile the statues

I think my grandmother and great-grandmother are more than a little pleased they aren't here to see this.

Some day this responsibility will fall to me. So much to live up to.