Taking Care Of Those That Came Before Us....

This past weekend Scott and Cori helped perform the most important Scout function that is done is San Jose.....they participated in the cemetery clean up at Oak Hill Cemetery. Each year, ALL the scouts (Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and Explorers) from the San Jose Betsuin gather in the early morning to clean, trim, water and lay out fresh flowers for all the Japanese ancestors that are buried at Oak Hill. Many of the kids have relatives that are buried here, such as Scott and Cori.....their Great Grandparents are buried there as well as many Aunts and Uncles. I always treasure doing this job because it gives us the chance to clean many headstones that become buried by dirt and grass over the year.....each year, we need to poke at the grass to uncover these flat headstones and clean them out to bring them out to the sunshine again. It's very touching and a very good lesson for the kids...many of these headstones belong to children, some of which only lived for a few days. Most of these kids passed around the turn of the century when medicine was often not available in the remote area that was San Jose at that time....disease and infant mortality ran very high. This year, I noticed a row of 5 or 6 flat headstones....all kids and all had died on the same day of the same year....I can only guess what had happened.....an accident, fire? We'll never know....the relatives of these kids have long gone. But I always remind my kids that they need to take extra special care when cleaning these headstones, these were kids who once laughed, played and had dreams of growing big.....just like them. It is a sad lesson to learn but it stresses our need to return on that one Saturday every summer to once again clean, trim, water and lay fresh flowers by these graves so the children that rest there will always know that no matter how much time passes, they are still remembered and are still loved.....

Scottie representing Troop 50.....hanging with his Troop 611 buddies....