What Memorial Day Weekend Means for Families, with Dan White

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is a special presentation of answers for elders featuring Evergreen Washelli =, and welcome to answers for elders radio everyone on this very special Memorial Day weekend, and we are very grateful to be sponsored today by Evergreen Washelli and our wonderful Dan White, who is with us in the studio today. Dan, welcome to the program it’s a very big weekend for you guys. Yes, it is, Suzanne. Thanks for having me. You know, we everybody runs to honor their loved ones that have passed in this weekend and to think about you know what this week can. You know means and what Monday means. You guys obviously are very much a pivotal part of that. Tell me a little bit about what happens on usually on Memorial Day. Well, on Memorial Day we have a big celebration, but we actually people start coming to visit usually the week before. Oh so there’s they’re up there right now a lot. Well, yes, they are up there a lot. We have guys that will be out in golf carts walking hand around to be able to help families locate their loved ones, because sometimes people haven’t been out there in a while and the tree that they thought was small has now grown quite large. So it’s difficult to find their loved ones. So we’re out there to assist with that, to help them with their vases that may have sunken in the ground. A little bit will help them do that, and so we are out there to do that. But they will be bringing flowers. They’ll do that. They’ll and they’ll be probably cleaning off the headstones. They will, they will be coming to clean off the headstones. Even though we will trim around the marker, some of them will get down and actually trim a little bit. That’s great. So it’s very much family or an end and oriented will have people that come out and bring blankets and we’ll sit and to spend time on a lovely day, as long as it’s not pouring rain. We’re hoping it’s going to be nice and sunny this day. Yes, so for tomorrow, so that’ll be great. Yeah, and and for Saturday and Friday. So you know, obviously we all want to honor those that hope who have passed. Sometimes we forget that there’s different ways in which that can be done. Tell me a little bit about some of the things that you’ve experienced. Well, I mean for us and and the whole purpose. When you think about cemeteries and about memorialization, it’s really all about we as humans. We just really want to be remembered. We want people to know that we existed and they’re really is no better way than to have somebody who is permanently placed people to come to visit and pay their pay the respects or understand genealogy. We have a lot of people that will come out to find and locate their great great great grandparents and has to understand. So yeah, so, so it is. But when you speak about other ways to go ahead and memorial memorialize somebody, it’s all about disremembering. So I talk to people who will just get together and have a on a certain day. They’ll just get together and have a small little party or go and convene at a restaurant or their local Irish pub to remember one of their close friends. Sometimes people will plant items in their gardens. You’ll get their own little stepping stones or stones to memorialize them there at the Home Front. So yeah, so there are lots of different ways. For us, though, it’s all about the cemetery and having a place to come to see all of your relatives. Right. That’s all about the generations that are all in one place. We have some that have been there probably five or six generations that the family is still placed there and continues to do that. So that’s quite a wonderful thing when you think about it. You know it really is, and that is really one of the, I guess, of the advantages to of having, you know, somebody that is entered or some in like a grave site to go to. It’s kind of a remembrance. Yet you told me a while ago that there’s a lot of families that choose cremation. Yes, there are, and so obviously to have that ability to you know, find ways to honor that person that’s maybe been scattered someplace. What are some suggestions you might have? Well, they’re probably there’s lots of places. One interesting one that I had heard about was that at a golf course, they actually were able to one of the the bottle, one of the ball washers. They were able to ask the golf course if they could put a little black at the bottom remembering their father, who was an avid golfer. and He. I love that you went to that golf course quite a bit. So we call those little those little items, cenotaphs. Those are really to remember somebody who’s actual cremator remains are not located there. Right, right, we can do that. You can also you can certainly do that in a in a in a cemetery as well. But there are lots of other places you can do some people will do it and donate benches and parks. Some people will do it in national forest and you’ll see plaques as you go. So there are lots of ways that you can honor those that have gone before us well. And it’s interesting when my mom passed in two thousand and eleven, mom and I always had pink roses. It was kind of our flower that we shared together. And I’m a rose grower and she also has Swedish heritage and I grow English roses. Who Night. Well, Lo and behold, there’s an English rose called the Queen of Sweden and is she’s a pink rose, the huge rose, and so I have it actually in the back of my garden, but it is now I can’t even believe it. I look out there and it’s like over a foot higher than my shed. Wow, that’s how big it is. Is Tall, and but it’s my mom’s rose and every time I look at the Queen of Sweden and those beautiful blooms, these teacup shape blooms. Right, it’s the way I honor her and and you know, but I think about, you know what? I know of so many families. I know somebody that did spent like six thousand dollars on a white garden for her mother and which was so incredible. And there’s a lot of caregivers out there that have that have been, you know, taking care of that loved one and it really redefined their purpose in life. Like me, and I think that there’s there’s a really a pro Britt thing to be able to want to do something, to acknowledge that don’t that precious time that you’ve had with a senior loved one. Yeah, it’s important and helps with the healing process, but it’s also important to remember those who brought us into the world or who had impact on who we have become. Right, I absolutely there are many ways to honor and that’s the important thing that you do honor them and and of course, a lot of us may have loved ones that may be interned in a cemetery but they don’t live here. You know, they you may be your folks may be in Kansas or something like that. What are the things that you can do in that regard? Well, usually what I know, what I do for my mother, who is interred in in Kansas City, is I will you can certainly call the cemetery and ask for a whoever might be a florist and they will certainly take the flowers out and place them on a grave for you. So that’s one way that I can do that to be able to honor. Otherwise, I still have paintings of my mother and so right able to pull them out and now and again and and look and remember and so well. And it’s also maybe it’s you get your family members together and you have a you cook a traditional you know, maybe one of Mom’s recipes or something like that, that you have a dinner of a you know, maybe there’s a there’s a tradition that your family had that you can you know that you can share together of Home Memories, you know, of your family, which is important. It’s interesting you say that, because I do see a lot of people nowadays that are passing down recipe books or writing from their parents or the recipe docks boxes. Down goes down through the generations, but that’s a way to remember right and honor your grandparents and your parents and, like I say, those people. So we are talking to Mr. Dan White from Evergreen Washelli and Dan, tell me a little bit about where your locations are. Well, we’ve got our main location is down at on Aura Boulevard at one one and one or or avenue north. That’s just south of Home Depot Northwest Hospital lows. So it’s located there. We’ve got a hundred and sixty acres between the two, two sides, very old cemetery that we’ve been around since one thousand eight hundred and eighty four. That’s amazing. We are having some new developments there that we are providing for cremation, which should be there hopefully by Memorial Day. Some wow, that’s absome be able to see some of those. That’s awesome. And then you also have your location and be view. Yes, and am be views located in Briar Washington, which is surrounded by mountain lake terrace and Kenmore and Botho and Lake Forest Park and that is a beautiful its a beautiful place. It is very serene. You drive up there, it’s amazing, you know, kind of nestled in a little neighborhood. It is nice solely in a residential area, most of the most cemeteries that you go by or generally on a major thoroughfare for people to drive by, but it is lovely. Yeah, and then you have your lifetime celebrations location and in boffle yes, and that’s in Bothel. That is the old original bothel funeral home, over a hundred years old. Evergreenwash ally took it over in one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine and it’s a great addition to the baffle community. And you’ve been with evergreen wash sully for a while so you’ve probably seen a lot of different traditions that have gone through. What I guess it you know, as we close out this first segment, what would kind of for some couple of your special memories of how families have done honored their loved ones? Well, probably the best, and it’s is just the fact to see families come out and sit. They’ll bring lawn chairs and they’ll actually bring food. Sometimes they’ll even bring a radio and they’ll sit in this be like a Sunday picnic, but they’re just there and they actually will sit down near the graves or on the graves and then they’ll just tell stories and it’s just, you know, a lot of times they’ll bring flowers together or they’ll have their own little remember and session. It goes on, but that by far is probably the most something so simple. It’s just being there and sharing with family members, sure, and obviously just having that time together to talk about the stories of you know, this is remember when this happened or when we were growing up. It’s a wonderful way for family members to bond and to remember that loved one. So, Dan, how do we reach you? Best way to reach me it’s probably by my cell phone, and that’s four to five, two, four, one, twenty eight hundred and fifty three. And you can help with people with any sort of questions that they might have a regarding memorial day or anything like that afterwards of how to honor their loved one. Absolutely. When you stay with this for one more segment, sure we’ll be right back with Dan coming up soon. This has been a special presentation of answers for elders featuring Evergreen Washelli. For more information about Evergreen Washelli. Their website is washelli.com. That’s washelli.com.