Sympathy flowers in Alexandria

Sympathy orders in Alexandria are almost always written against a clock somebody else set — a viewing tonight, a service tomorrow at ten, a burial straight afterwards. The city's chapels sit close together, which helps. Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home (1500 West Braddock Road, 22302) serves the Rosemont, North Ridge, Beverley Hills and Seminary Hill side and is the chapel most West End families use. Demaine Funeral Home (520 South Washington Street, 22314) sits on the Washington Street corridor in Old Town, a few blocks from Christ Church and the Old Presbyterian Meeting House, and Demaine also runs chapels in Springfield and Fairfax that draw Alexandria families south. Cunningham Turch Funeral Home (811 Cameron Street, 22314) is deep in the Old Town grid, a walk-up address where a driver parks on the street and carries the piece in. Jefferson Funeral Chapel (5755 Castlewellan Drive, 22315) anchors the Kingstowne, Franconia and south-county side. Burials fan out from there: Ivy Hill Cemetery (2823 King Street, 22302), Mount Comfort Cemetery (South Kings Highway, 22310), Bethel Cemetery and the historic Alexandria National Cemetery on Wilkes Street — one of the original national cemeteries established in 1862 — plus the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial on South Washington Street. Larger services move to National Memorial Park in Falls Church, Fairfax Memorial Park, or to Arlington National Cemetery, which runs its own floral receiving process on its own schedule; confirm with the funeral director or the cemetery before you order anything addressed there. Two pieces of Alexandria geography shape how a sympathy run actually goes. Washington Street, the corridor Demaine sits on, is the George Washington Memorial Parkway through Old Town — federally administered, with restrictions on where a vehicle may stop — so a driver carrying an arrangement to a South Washington Street chapel is parking on a side street and walking in. Cunningham Turch on Cameron Street has the same problem in sharper form, since the surrounding grid is one-way, metered and narrow. Everly-Wheatley on West Braddock Road and Jefferson Funeral Chapel out on Castlewellan Drive both have their own lots, which makes them the two easiest chapel deliveries in the city and the two most forgiving of a late arrival. Alexandria is also a federal and military town sitting between the Pentagon, Fort Belvoir and the District, and a meaningful share of services here end in a committal at Arlington National Cemetery with military honors, which runs on a scheduled slot the family does not control and a floral process the cemetery administers itself.