Every year when I was in the little cove, Nan and I would make a trip to Grates Cove, not to shop, as we did many times, but for something different. Nan had lost two sons when they were very young. Dominic was just twelve years old when he died in 1926. Benedict was fourteen when he died in 1938.

They were laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery in Grates Cove because there was never anywhere in the little cove to bury the dead. Nan never talked about these two boys, I guess it was too painful for her. All I know of them in what my mom and her sisters and brothers said.

But we would take a day every summer to go to the Grates and paint these two wooden crosses. Nan had a man Brady in Bay de Verde make new ones for her every two or three years. There were no names on the crosses, no date of death or age or information at all like headstones have today.

Nan was quiet while she painted and I did not like to disturb her. She whispered a prayer while she worked. Sometimes she had me pain the area closest to the ground because she was old and found it hard to bend down so low. I didn’t mind, I always loved to help my nan with things that were important to her.

We didn’t usually visit anyone on thee occasions, like we did when we came to the Grates to go shopping. Nan was usually quiet on the way home but we did stop several times to “take a spell.” Nan would discuss her plans for the next day while we were taking our spell.

The people of the little cove had their own way of dealing with life’s ups and downs. Joy was to be shared with friends and neighbours. Sorrow, one kept to one’s self, the thought being that everyone has their own burden to carry, don’t need yours to add to it. But they always came together when the need was there, you could count on that.

Cyril Griffin New Perlican, NL