Posted on 05/29/2006 8:44:28 PM PDT by SandRat
Manny Loya has a bond with Tucson's war dead.
In the hot sun, he gazes at their headstones, imagining how they lived, whom they loved and how they died.
"At first, I used to dream about them," said Loya, a volunteer grave tender at Holy Hope Cemetery, the final resting place of thousands of departed military personnel.
For the past week or so, the retired city sanitation worker has performed his annual labor of love, sprucing up the cemetery for the national holiday honoring fallen troops.
It's a time of year that leaves him feeling sentimental.
"Look at all these names," said Loya, 62, sweeping a weathered hand over a swath of grass dotted with U.S. flags.
"See this one? He's a Korea vet who died when he was 33. And this one over here. He was 25. He served in Vietnam.
"It's sad when they die so young," he said. "Sometimes I think the military should be taking people like me who are over the hill, and letting the young ones enjoy life."
Sadder still are the graves no one visits, he said, pointing to the faded headstone of an Air Force member who died a decade ago.
"It's like he's abandoned," Loya said. "People who served their country deserve more respect than that." The grave of Tucson Marine Cpl. Jeff Lawrence, killed by a homemade bomb in Iraq days before his wife gave birth in 2004, hits Loya especially hard.
Lawrence's headstone was festooned with a string of tiny foil birthday cakes this month. Had he lived, he would have turned 24 on May 5.
"I feel so sorry for that family, for that baby," Loya said, straightening the bouquet of blue roses and yellow daisies atop the grave.
Lawrence's relatives have never met Loya, but they say it is comforting to think he's keeping watch over their loved one.
"It is deeply appreciated," said Dan Lawrence, the fallen Marine's father.
Loya, whose late father was a soldier in the World War II era, is something of a legend at the cemetery on North Oracle Road.
Staff members there say he may be the only volunteer in Tucson devoting so much time to such work.
Year-round, Loya spends about 30 hours a week tending the graves of service members and civilians, usually arriving before dawn. He picks up trash, trims trees, clips grass and repositions wreaths and crosses overturned by the wind.
As he works, Loya chats with the bereaved, like the Air Force veteran who salutes his wife's headstone whenever he visits.
"I guess I'm kind of like a counselor," Loya said. "I don't mind listening because I know how it feels to lose someone you love."
It was his own loss in 2001 that launched his efforts. When his longtime wife, Beatrice, died of a heart attack at age 59, she was buried at Holy Hope. Loya started spending time there to tidy her grave. Eventually, he branched out, tending more and more graves ¡ª until he was putting in so much time that the cemetery staff offered him a job.
"He was here just about every day anyway, so we thought we might as well pay him," said Martha Grover, Holy Hope's administrator.
"But he said no."
Instead, they gave him a uniform and let him use a green lawn tractor to ride around on.
Loya, who has five children, 15 grandchildren and four great-grandkids, said the cemetery work is its own reward.
"Families have offered me money, and I say no," he said.
"When I do this, I do it from my heart."
Caring for the memory gardens of stone of our veterans.
He's one of a kind. He has a sweet heart.
Honor can be contagious, Sandy. As it spreads we seek no cure.
Thanks for posting this story. What a wonderful man!
BTTT
too bad that there are NOT more like him.
free dixie,sw
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