Walking in the Cemetery
I have taken to walking in a cemetery every morning. It is a big cemetery with many hills and meandering paved roads circling the sections of plots. I love the exercise, of course. I love the time to myself, with my thoughts. I really love all the headstones, all the names and dates. Every day you notice something different. Each time I think I’ve noticed everything I can on my particular route, a new name pops into my line of vision. I notice a child’s death. Oh, here is a woman who died when she was only 45. Here is a single woman. Here is a man who died right before World War 2 began. I walk, wondering what it would be like to not know about D Day, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor. One day I came upon a family of four who died on the same day. I needed to pull my phone out, google the name. They had been murdered in their home three days before Christmas in 1989. I read everything I could about them and then walked around with them in my head and heart for days. They are still with me.
Mostly what I get from walking in the cemetery, seeing the endless process of burying the dead-people are always moving in but no one is moving out!- is the obvious truth that we are all going to die. Of course, I know that. I am of an age where I have lost my parents, a brother, a sister. Every day the newspaper tells me of someone famous who passed. During my walks in the cemetery I feel a certain solidarity with the dead. It’s a positive feeling. All of these people have lived, lost, and died. All of these peoples’ lives are marked by their headstone, their names etched in forever. Some had better lives than others. Some had better deaths too. Some died young, some died very young. Some died very old. They all made the journey from this life to whatever happens next. I follow the trail of the cemetery, contemplating them all.
The cemetery tells me death is not the worst thing. This place is not the worst place for the Earthly body to end up. Life goes on, memory fades, but there is peace in being exempt from the struggle, the honking of horns, the outrage of politics, the torture of guilt and regret. Maybe I am a Pollyanna, but I assume that death stops the pain and freeze frames love and joy. I assume most of the people whose lives are remembered in this cemetery are in a better place. I will join them someday, and it will all be okay.
