A mindbump for today

suggested by Gothic Home

"Describe your very first cemetery experience."

My first memory of death was when my Grandpa Roy died when I was 8. I remember that I went to the funeral, but I later learned that my grandma thought I was too young to be there. I had no clue what was going on, though, really. I wasn't sad. I remember that at the end of the service they opened the casket, and from where I sat, I could see Grandpa's big round belly sticking up. I remember that his face looked really fake and he had lipstick on.
I don't remember going to the cemetery for his internment, but I have many memories of going to the West Seattle Cemetery with my grandma to visit his grave. That's what we did with grandma when we were little- we visited Inger and Caroline in the nursing home and Grandpa in the cemetery. My grandma bought a double plot so that she would be buried with my grandpa, and it creeps me out to this day that her name is already on a headstone with her year of birth and a dash.
I also remember going to a funeral in high school. My friend Lorri's boyfriend was killed by a drunk driver, he was 17. The single most heartachingly horrifying thing I have ever witnessed was the way his mother screamed at God, right there at Jay's graveside, and begged him to give her her son back. She refused to allow the cemetery staff to lower the casket into the ground. I remember she was pleading, "Don't cover him up, don't cover him up."
I don't remember how it was resolved, I am sure that I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't bear to watch the entire thing. I mean, I know that he eventually got buried, and his mother survived, but I'm not sure she left the cemetery under her own power that day.