Our Dead

Today, Memorial Day, we paid a much-needed visit to our dead. That is, we visited some of them in the SLC City Cemetary. We could have visited many others, and considered different day trips that would bring us to their resting spots, but we decided to go to Uncle Tom’s grave in SLC instead. It was pouring but it was worth it to bring our young children to see the resting place of two who make us grateful for our own blood.

On Memorial Day, we visit our dead and seem to focus specifically on our war dead–those who fought to preserve the freedoms we enjoy in the United States of America. Thomas Richards Fellows died in the service of his fellow Americans as well, but not in the U.S. Armed Forces. Uncle Tom died as an LDS missionary to New Mexico on January 20, 1978. He was killed instantly in a head-on collision with a semi on an icy day on the freeway. He was the only son of my grandfather Walter Eugene Fellows, and the Fellows name (of this line) died with him. His was a great loss indeed for the entire family.

His mother Helen Richards Fellows also lies there with him. She died in 1994 of cancer. She was a matriarch to our entire family who has been greatly missed for over a decade. We are Richards through her, as direct as anybody bearing the Richards name today. My daughters placed flowers on her grave and asked if she would be happy about the flowers. They also asked when she will be alive again to see the flowers. We told them that we are certain she is aware of the flowers right now and that she will be alive again with a body when she is resurrected. They are familiar with the idea of resurrection through the stories of Jesus that they love so much. They will be fortunate to meet Grandma Fellows and Uncle Tom at the Resurrection Day. What fun that will be!