Cemeteries

I love cemeteries.  I suppose I don’t want to know the psychological reason why I love them, but I don’t care - I just do.  Perhaps it is because I grew up across the street from one, and used to play there as a kid.  Sliding down the hills, soaring over low headstones, and steering between others on my Flexible Flyer was especially delicious, and daring - the highlight of my winter.  I can still taste the snow, and feel the cold dampness in my hands.  And then there was the big rock wall that begged to be climbed, and what an accomplishment it was to reach the top of that! It was one of the hallmarks of our youth, to say you were finally big enough to conquer the wall.  Heady stuff for a six year old.

It seemed so large then, a huge hill for sliding, a high rock wall for climbing.  Revisiting there a short while ago, I saw that the hill was just barely that, and the rock wall was only slightly taller than I am now. This can’t be the same place, I thought. How time and memory distort.

I think of cemeteries as parks, with lots of obstacles.  Some cemeteries are real small, some overly large, but most are just about right.  They are perfectly suited for a walk, or a run. Bikes are welcome. They are built for contemplation. They demand reflection.  Dogs love them. 

Every stone you pass heralds a life lived. I can’t help but look at a name that catches my attention and wonder – what was their story?  Who were they, really? You see, for every single tablet or edifice, there is a tale that in some fashion waits in vain to be told. Those who rest there pine eternally for someone to take their name, that one thing that binds them to history, and fill in the vast empty between “born” and “died.”  Everyone, at some level, wants to be known.

Looking at the stones, as numerous as stars, you become aware of one of life’s truths.  They are all there now, all together.  Cowards and heroes, lawyers and thieves (but I repeat myself), friends and lovers, infants and aged, rich and poor, poets and players, they’re all there now, and in most instances, you can’t tell one from another.  The boneyard makes an equal of us all.

And a cemetery at night is still one of the scariest places on earth - at any age. 

As you may have guessed, this is not the first time we’ll talk about cemeteries.  My next post will share with you my first “official” tour of Oakwood Cemetery.  And once read, you will properly guess that Oakwood will be visited yet again. 

  

Mark Twain Quote:   “Death is the starlit strip between the companionship of yesterday and the reunion of tomorrow.”