This is a story that I was inspired to write in the middle of the night, just before my grandmother's funeral last year. I ended up writing it right then and didn't go to bed that night!
The Lonely Graves
Maria and her first husband, Toddy, met in Baltimore working at an ammunition factory during WWII. They were very much in love with each other during their whole marriage. They had their first daughter, Mary, when they were 22. She was an only child until Mark came along 4 years later. It was another 6 years before Denise came along and delighted everyone. All of a sudden, it seems, they had child after child. Michael, rather known as Mike, came along a little less than 17 months later. Last, but certainly not least, came David.
On their 17th wedding anniversary, October 2, 1959, Maria and Toddy, both age 37, learned that he had cancer, They only had just over three more months together before he died on January 11, 1960. Mary recalls that, "Mother" would go in to see "Daddy" in the room he was in. No one else would be allowed in.
Maria was now a widow who ended up claiming and often quoting the scripture, "He has given me the oil of gladness for mourning," from Isaiah 61:3. She had been a homemaker and he had been a stone mason, having recently completed their second brick home in Waterbury, CT. She was now a widow with their five children, Mary 16, Mark 12, Denise almost 5, Mike 3 ½, and David was 18 months.
Maria felt particularly bad for David. After all, he was so young, yet he would most likely have had a very close relationship with his Daddy. Maria would show him Toddy's pajamas frequently to remind him of his Daddy. Maria has shared the story of when she would go shopping with David. When he would see a man, he would say, "Daddy!" She was so embarrassed, wondering what they thought of her!
David had a hard life. Almost exactly ten years ago this month, in March of 2013, David's friends informed Maria and Mark, with whom he lived, that no one had seen David for a couple of weeks. It wasn't unusual, for he often came and went without always saying what he was up to, so they hadn't given much thought to his absence.
After a couple of weeks, his body was discovered. He had been murdered, then buried in the dirt, right here in Lexington, SC. What a tragedy for Maria and the whole family. Her baby!
Throughout her life, Maria talked so fondly about Toddy, even after she got remarried, almost 16 years after his death. Her granddaughter, Amy, said that she always loved the name "Toddy" because of how wonderful everyone made him seem. When Amy called to tell Maria that she had just given birth to their third child, and third son, she told her grandmother with whom she was very close, that she had named him Toddy. It is the only time that Amy ever remembered hearing Maria cry, or choke up.
Mary, Mike, and Amy all remember Maria often talking about her plan to be buried with Toddy back in the Riverside Cemetery in Waterbury, CT.
The extra lot had been purchased. The gravestone reads, "DIBLASI," on the top. Beneath it, on the left is a purposely lighter color square than the darker brownish gray stone. On it says Toddy's details, "October 14, 1922- January 11, 1960." Opposite that square is a matching one, left blank for whoever would be buried there with him. At the bottom reads his favorite scripture, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." There it's been, empty for the past 63 years.
Don was a widower for a matter of months before he married Maria. He was to be buried next to Rene, his first wife. As far as the DiBlasi family was concerned, it was "set in stone." However, when Don died in June of 2011, a few days after his 86th birthday, he ended up being buried here in SC at the Ft. Jackson cemetery.
A few hours before Maria's death on March 1, 2023, Amy and Mark were going through her organized folder labeled in her handwriting, "Funeral." Amy had been told earlier in the day by a friend who is a doctor at Columbia's VA hospital, that Maria probably wouldn't make it another day, or even though the night. He was right. He also told her that she would need to tell the EMT people, when it came time, which funeral home they would be using.
As Amy and Mark studied the papers, they realized that Maria and Don had purchased funeral packages back in December of 2003. The instructions written by the chosen funeral home. They were to have their bodies buried in the local veterans cemetery there in Rhode Island. Simple and identical caskets were chosen. Their plans were also identical. How could this be? Why didn't they go with their lifetime plans to be buried next to their first spouses?
Amy figured that Maria, when sitting in the funeral home discussing the facts with the director, nearly twenty years before, decided to be practical. The veterans cemetery gives you a plot, marker, and burial for free. Shipping a casket to Connecticut and having to pay the receiving funeral home in Connecticut thousands of dollars, plus the thousand dollar fee to be buried at the cemetery there, probably seemed unreasonable to her.
Mike said that he remembered a few things that Maria had said about her burial. One was that she wanted to be buried in Connecticut with Toddy. Another was that he remembered that she really didn't want to be cremated. She also didn't want to spend a lot of money on funeral type things. After all, what does it really matter in the end?
The big question to help the family determine if they should share the estimated $8,000 cost to have Maria's casket shipped to Connecticut and buried in the Riverside Cemetery, which they all knew that she wouldn't have been opposed to was this: was there anything written in her will about her being buried in Connecticut?
There was a brochure from the Riverside Cemetery within her funeral folder, but that was it.
While discussing this, Mike brought up the fact that the boxes containing David's ashes were to be buried with Maria. They then discussed it with the funeral home.
When Denise brought the ashes to the funeral home, they were surprised and confused as to why there were so many ashes and why it was so heavy. It's possibly because his body had been hidden in the dirt for a couple of weeks before being discovered. The director said that the boxes with David's ashes could be put in Maria's casket and buried with her.
One issue was that his name couldn't be on Maria and Don's marker, most likely because he wasn't a veteran. As the family discussed this issue, Mike reminded us that, at least, there is a brick in his name and honor at the Riverbanks Zoo in nearby Columbia.
As Amy was searching through the DiBlasi family photos that night, for pictures that could be used for Maria's memorial service, she came across the familiar picture of her grandfather's gravestone. This time, she noticed the blank spot on the right, and became a little sad that after all, he would not have the body of his beloved wife buried next to him. His body would remain alone in Connecticut, while Maria's body would be with Don's and David's.
A little while later, while she was busy with other pictures, it suddenly came to her. These problems could be solved if the boxes of David's ashes could be removed before they got buried with his mother. All of this was a matter of time. The ashes could be shipped to the Riverside Cemetery in Waterbury, CT and buried there next to his Daddy that he so missed and had to grow up without. He could have the honor of having his name and dates engraved on a stone, rather than being buried with no recognition. Toddy's stone would no longer have an empty spot, but would have the name of his precious son that he wasn't able to raise and see grow up.
Perhaps, if people are taking a walk in that cemetery, reading the names and dates on the different stones, trying their best to figure out the story behind it all, they will put the dates together and realize that Toddy DiBlasi must have tragically died at the young age of 37 years old, leaving behind a precious and impressionable 18 month old. Maybe they will wonder how it was for David to all of a sudden not have his father around, and not have any idea where he went or when he would be coming back home. Wouldn't that be any 18 month old's reaction? Maybe not, but with the wonderful father and man that his other children and Maria always lauded him to be, it would make sense that David would have been longing for his sweet Daddy.
And that is what happened. Maria was buried next to her second husband, Don, and David was buried next to his dear daddy, Toddy.
