For The Dead: A Day Of Memories, A Day Of Respect

On a drippy, gray Memorial Day, Spokane’s residents paused to remember their dead.

They came to cemeteries with their children, parents and dogs. They came with flowers, flags and prayers.

Mostly, they came with memories.

“I remember what a character he was, how he loved to play tricks on people,” said Mike Petek of his brother, Tim, who died 11 years ago of cancer at the age of 25. “We’re paying our respects to those who have gone on.”

Petek came to Holy Cross Cemetery on Monday with his three young children. His six-year-old daughter, Bethany, laid a handful of pink rhododendron blossoms on the grave of an uncle she’d never met but her father wanted her to remember.

“I wanted to remind them that we’ve got some people we’ll be able to see someday,” Petek said. “They need to get a grasp of the fact we all live, and we all pass on.”

Many people visiting loved one’s graves at Holy Cross worried the Memorial Day ritual of paying respect to the dead is dying.

“When you come out here, you mostly see old people,” said John Danelo, 45, who came to visit his father. “There’s something wrong with my generation about remembering the dead.

“I worry that this kind of tradition is lost.”

Caroline Mangione drove from Gig Harbor to Spokane to visit the graves of her parents and husband. “My family held great faith in coming to graves. My kids …,” she said, ending her sentence with a shake of her head. “They don’t come.”

Fresh-cut flowers turned the freshly-mowed lawn at Holy Cross into a mosaic of color. Miniature U.S. flags stood beside the graves of war veterans.

Headstones with inscriptions told short stories of loving daughters, courageous soldiers, even a “beloved humorist.”

A single shaft of wheat was carved into the small stone marking the ashes of Lynda Rambo’s mother, who grew up on a farm in Reardan.

“She loved wheat,” Rambo said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo