She had been asked to help with pre-need decisions.  Her parents thought it was time that they set their affairs in order; determine what their options were for "When The Time Comes."

The daughter didn't want to argue.  Ten full years earlier, she had been flustered and refused when her mother asked her to walk through her house and write down all the things she wanted "When The Time Comes." She was a dutiful daughter, but she was just not going to point to silverware, furniture, and paintings.  You must be kidding. 

But there was a certain logic to this request and so their daughter agreed to assist with some of the necessary tasks.

There was a question as to whether they would be interred at the Greek Cemetery or one of the other local cemeteries.  She had no idea there were so many choices for one's final resting place.

The Good, Dutiful Daughter quickly found that Christmas shopping was going to be taking a bit of a back seat to this adventure and she wished that she could handle this at another time of year - it's not like there was a dire need.  But she visited various cemeteries which she found on the internet or had been suggested by friends.

It was approximately two o'clock in the afternoon, just three days before Christmas, as the woman brought her daughters up the long, winding hill, halfway to the Pacific Ocean, to a rather spectacular cemetery.  The location promised views of the mountains and on a clear day, you could in fact see right out to the Pacific, its waters still miles out but unmistakably blue on the horizon.

She knew she was tempting fate, bringing a three-year-old and a four-year-old along, considering it was nearing the "Witching Hour" and they would be needing naps and a snack pretty soon.  Any minute now, that kid-alarm would go off and this was NOT a pleasant time!

However, she thought she could just take a quick peek around and at least see if the location was as magnificent as she'd heard.

She entered the gates and slowly rolled the SUV up a hill and curved around to the left.  Something shiny caught her eye to the right and she looked.  It was a mylar balloon.  But...she quickly noted that there were several, on several different graves.  She pulled over and stopped.

And then she saw the large statue in the middle that said, "A mother holds her child's hand for a while, but their heart forever."  It took only moments for her to realize that, although she'd never encountered this in her life, this was a section specifically for children.

Such tiny graves.

At first, she was just aghast, thinking how terrible and heartbreaking it was that these children were all together in one place.  And then she thought, "But they're all together, in one place."  

Of course.  Of course.  Where else would they be...somewhere alone, waiting?  It instantly became comforting to know that these tiny souls were playing together.

But...  This didn't seem like enough.  There were many empty graves.  Of course, not every marker had a balloon or flowers.

She looked in the rear view mirror at her own small daughters and she began to weep.  She laid her head down on her steering wheel and thanked God between sobs for her beautiful, healthy children.

And then - if you ask her today, she cannot tell you why - she opened the car door next to her children, reached in, took four stuffed animals that were on the floor of the car, and laid them on the four closest graves.

The poor little girls in that SUV couldn't understand why their Mommy was taking their animals and leaving them on the ground.  They began to cry and then there they were, the three of them, all crying for losses.  The little girls for theirs, their mother for someone else's.

The woman got back into her car and she drove away quickly.  She drove down that winding hill and back to her home town as fast as she could, still crying.

She drove to the thrift store, determined.  She took her two tired, hungry, confused daughters out of the car and brought them into the thrift store. She found the toy section and thankfully, there were big garbage bags full of stuffed animals.  Vaguely aware that some people noticed her slightly disheveled appearance and the decided lack of mascara ON her eyelashes (she had been hastily smearing the black liquid across her upper cheeks), she bought seven bags of toys and dashed back up that long, winding hill, back to the cemetery with the tiny graves.

She got out and started at one end of the children's section, carrying a big black garbage bag, and placing one stuffed animal on each grave.  The occasional imperfect or strange- or scary-looking animal went back into the jumble in the bag.  When one bag was empty (save for the rejected animals), she ran back to the car for the next.  

The woman had forgotten to pick up a snack for her little girls and they were crying off and on...she could even hear them with the door closed. The woman would say, through her own tears, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" but she was never clear in her own heart as to whom she was apologizing...

But she kept going, bending down at every single grave, placing a small bear, or dog, or angel, or doll.  She was careful to put Thomas the Tank Engine on a boy's marker (even though her own daughters loved him) and dolls on the girls'.  It mattered to her.

As she hurried, she just kept saying to herself, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry..."  And like the three-year-old and the four-year-old, she would cry off and on as she wondered  HOW?  WHEN?  WHY?

Way before she ever thought she would, she ran out of toys.  She was nowhere near finished!  She jumped back into the car and drove back down the winding hill and back to the thrift store.  She bought every single bag of toys they had and dashed back up the hill.

Same scenario.  Tiny graves.  Tiny Christmas presents.  Big tears.

Same scenario.  Out of toys.  Down the hill.  But then to all three thrift stores she was aware of, buying every stuffed animal she could get her hands on.

Finally, it was growing too dark to see what she was doing.  But she used up every toy she had and was very, very near the end.  She wept and apologized to the tiny graves she had missed and promised to come back the next day, which she did.  But it made her immeasurably sad to leave them that night.

Looking back, she wonders what time cemeteries close...and why no one asked her to leave as it grew dark.  Or why no one noticed her and asked her to stop what she was doing.  Or ask WHY she was doing what she was doing.

However, the woman doesn't know how she would answer that question of why.  She just knew she had to...