please tell me if i sound crazy, or reasonable...thank you!
August 22, 2004

To: GREEN HILLS MEMORIAL PARK

Grounds people and supervisors:

Twice in the past couple months you have taken away my daughter’s chimes and turtles left in her tree by her friends and family. I was extremely distressed when I came to visit Bekah’s grave in July [the month she was born, and the month she was murdered] and her tree had been completely denuded! How could you do this without even calling me? The butterflies that were in her tree for less than a month [I haven't been able to find any turtle chimes] cost me $15. I am a single mother, not a rich woman, but even more important to me than the money you cost me is what Bekah's presents symbolized.

I complained to the front desk and to inquire whether you had saved Bekah’s presents for me. I was told, "Chimes are against the rules.” I'm still looking for the sign that declares chimes "against the rules," though i have seen the sign that cautions against fake flowers and statuary, while observing grave after grave after grave decorated "against the rules," and undisturbed. I’m not blind. It is discriminatory and in fact CRUEL of you to strip my 21-year-old daughter’s tree as you leave untouched elaborate statuary and fake flowers on so many graves, and chimes in practically every other tree in this park. I've taken pictures, and if and when I find another set of turtle chimes and you take them out of her tree without any notice or recourse I will take action against this park.

The items I put in Bekah’s tree comfort me because I believe they please Bekah; the items left by others comfort me because they assure me that she is not forgotten. The decorated graves and the chimes throughout the park do not bother me; they comfort me. It is a comfort to this bereaved mother to observe how others work their way through grief. How they honor their loved one's memory and maintain the love they share with those they have lost.

I don’t fathom the reasoning behind your “rule” outlawing these mementos that mean so much to me, but I don’t have to agree with it or even “get” it to be bound by it I suppose. What I will not submit to again is your unconscionable, baffling decision that Bekah’s grave and Bekah’s tree [we chose the site because of her tree as well as the view from her grave], of all the graves and trees in the park, will be summarily stripped of every memento left upon it while other graves and trees are left undisturbed. It is unfair and unnecessarily hurtful to a mother who still grieves as she always will because her daughter, who should be alive, who was healthy and beautiful and full of promise and only 21 years old, is dead while her remains rot inside the ground in this cemetery. Your actions have really wounded me when you did not need to do that. Why single out Bekah’s grave? I am very angry.

Barbara Bales
Mother of Bekah Zask
pen and ink drawing by bekah zask 

the eldest son 
here's another that kinda conforms to the theme of feet:bekah with feet 

- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2004 06:44:00 AM