Milder days mean more frequent visits to his daughter’s grave
“She was my world,” Marty Cabry said Monday, sitting in a folding chair at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, and playing her favorite music — Toni Braxton and Boyz II Men.
In the winter, Marty Cabry visits the grave of his daughter, Maryellen, at least once a week — and every other day or daily when the weather gets mild. Mary Ellen was 47 when she died in May 2020, an early victim of COVID-19. She had been a resident of Inglis House, the West Philadelphia nursing home, since age 16.
“She was my world,” he said Monday, sitting in a folding chair at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon and playing her favorite music — Toni Braxton and Boyz II Men — on a portable CD player. She also liked butterflies and Philly sports, the Eagles in particular.
Cabry, who is 74 and was chief of staff to Jannie Blackwell, the former Philadelphia City Council member, makes the trip by minivan from University City, often leaving flowers at Mary Ellen’s grave in Section 32 of the cemetery. A groundskeeper once told Cabry, “If I ever forget what holiday is coming up, I just go past your daughter’s grave and I know.”