Cemetery rule leaves families bereft.

Byline: Dianne Williamson

COLUMN: DIANNE WILLIAMSON

Ronald Dansereau lives a stone's throw from Hope Cemetery and visits the grave of his wife almost every day.

His routine seldom varies. After tending to the flowers he's placed there, the 71-year-old retiree gets into his car and inserts his wife's favorite love song into the cassette player. Then he listens, lost in private reverie, as Andy Cooney's strong Irish tenor wafts across the quiet burial ground:

You touched upon my life

And gave me a reason for living ...

He and his wife, Julie, were married for 43 years and had three children. In 1998, she suffered a debilitating stroke and Mr. Dansereau tended to her for the next five years at home, refusing to put her in a nursing home. She died four years ago, which is how long he's been making his daily pilgrimage.

It's a quiet existence and he pretty much keeps to himself, but one day in May of 2006 he watched as another bereaved family buried a loved one across the street from the grave of his wife. After the ceremony, an older couple detached themselves from the mourners and introduce themselves.

Their names were Walter and Elsie Moquin. They told Mr. Dansereau that the grave belonged to their grandson, Pfc. Brian M. Moquin Jr., an infantryman who died in a helicopter crash May 5 of 2006 while on a combat mission in Afghanistan. He was only 19, and was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star.

"It really got to me - a young kid like that," said Mr. Dansereau, who is also an Army veteran. Since that day, he added another ritual to his cemetery visit: twice a day, when he arrived and when he left, he would salute the grave of Brian Moquin.

Spring melted into fall, and the widower continued his daily serenade to his wife. Across the street, those who had loved Pfc. Moquin also visited his grave almost every day. Mr. Dansereau saw other things, too. One late afternoon, a group of young men gathered in a circle at the tomb of their late friend, opened a beer and appeared to be speaking to him. Another time, two elderly women drove up the street and asked Mr. Dansereau if the nearby grave was that of the soldier from Worcester. He said it was, and they said a prayer at the burial place of a man they never knew.

A couple of months ago, Brian's mother brought two dwarf spruce pines to her son's grave and planted them on either side of his headstone. It made her feel good to plant something alive, something she could care for and nurture when she visited her only child. Shortly after, Mr. Dansereau also planted two small bushes at his wife's grave.

It wasn't too long before Tracy Bissonnette found a yellow sign in the ground near her son's headstones, notifying her that the plantings were in violation of cemetery policy and must be removed. Mrs. Bissonnette burst into tears.

"They're just bushes," she said this week, her voice shaking. "They weren't going to get bigger than his headstone. I planted them for my son, as a symbol of life."

Mr. Dansereau was also notified that his bushes were in violation and he removed them. The Moquins never got around to removing their tiny trees, which was fine with Mr. Dansereau.

Last Sunday, on what would have been Brian's 21st birthday, Mr. Dansereau watched with a smile as Brian's family released 21 red, white and blue balloons into the sky. They played some Frank Sinatra tunes, Brian's favorites. It was then that Mr. Dansereau met Mrs. Bissonnette and her husband, Worcester Police Officer Peter Bissonnette. Mrs. Bissonnette said she was sorry that he had to remove his bushes.

The next day, Mrs. Bissonnette returned to the cemetery and found two mounds of dirt where her son's trees used to be. Cemetery personnel had removed them. Again she burst into tears, stung.

Mr. Dansereau was incensed. For more than a year he had been watching this dignified family mourn in private sorrow, and he had developed a bond particular to acquaintances whose lives are strangely linked by death and proximity.

"This young man is an American war hero," he said. "I told them at the cemetery that I had no problem taking my trees out, but that boy's trees need to stay. They had to. He gave his life fighting for his country. He deserves all the respect we can give him."

Robert Moylan, commissioner of the city's Public Works, Parks and Cemeteries, said the city-owned cemetery established a policy that limits the planting of bushes and trees because it impedes mowing and maintenance. When told of the Moquin matter, he said the family could make a written request to the parks commission.

"I think they'd have a compelling argument," he said.

Mr. Dansereau thinks so, too.

"There should be special regulations for someone who gives his life for this country," he said. "The cemetery should be asking this family what it can do for them, not making things more painful."

He's right. You can't argue with a man who has all the right priorities, who is determined to provide music for the woman he loved, and a passionate plea for a brave young soldier he never knew.