Walking Among The Dead

It was a Saturday morning and I was having breakfast, muffin and cold coffee, at a franchised coffee shop. I sat there reading a newspaper and saw out through the glass wall, a local cemetery. I always felt strange about cemeteries. They are spooky at once, all the dead people buried there for ages among other dead people. But somehow they had an allure for me with the all the grand tombstones, located in the serenity of the woods. They always felt out of the world, and out of the world the buried people are, but the area itself is kind of isolated from the hustle and bustle of the urban world, kind of serene.

I decided to take a drive through, may be take a stroll as I had some time to kill. At the entrance read "All seasonal decorations need to be removed by March 31st". They might as well make it July 4th. I will tell you why later. The speed limit was set to 10mph which is understandable. There were few cars here and there and handful of people walking or jogging there while I was driving slowly. It was a nice day and calm. I bought down the windows of my car and could hear the birds chirping and cool breeze. It’s been a while since I took some time off with nature though I live in a region very close to several beautiful valleys and parks.

After a few minutes of driving I decided to take a walk. I parked my car to the side of the driveway and started walking in the woods. Since it was a cemetery, the ground was lined with tombstones with the name, date/year of Birth and Death of the person buried underneath. It felt kind of strange and creepy, but as time passed I felt some strange peace take over me. It was calm, cool breezy day. My thoughts quickly wandered to the people I had personally lost during my lifetime. I remembered my maternal grandfather who was grace personified. He was a farmer and strongly believed in hard work. Then there was my paternal grand mother who had a personal presence like no one I have known. I can still remember the look in her eye that had shades of strength and sorrow from her life experiences. She had lost her one eye when she was young in an accident while painting her house in the village when my dad was in school. My grand mom died on Indian Independence Day(Aug 15th) when I was a kid, whereas my grand father died about 5 years ago from old age. They both had a huge impact in my life. There were other relatives and friends that passed away, whose memories were both good and sad at the same time. Some of them struggled in their last days like my father-in-law who died of complications from CKD. I regret not being able to spend more time with him.

I continued my walk and tried to lose my thoughts by observing the various kinds of burial descriptions and decorations. I began to observe what people had placed on the burial grounds of their loved ones. It was clear that there was a social hierarchy among the dead as well. The richer among the dead, I think, had bigger almost cathedral like structures. While most were regular folks with regular stones. There was one shaped like a pyramid, probably representing free masonry. May be the dead guy was a mason. There were some gothic roman styled structures. Some even had gates in the front with dome shaped roof like a pagan temple. I am sure the dead cared less about social structure and hierarchy. It is the alive, loved ones of the dead that wanted to show their social status by throwing in money. It could even be an innocent gesture of love by constructing a unique structure and uniqueness can sometimes be shown by making the home bigger. Either way, every burial had a story to tell about the dead person and about the people related to the dead person.

The other observation I had was the decorations on the ground. If the dead person was really young, they had toys like Angels and Easter bunnies on the ground, while some older person's had weird stuff like golf balls. Some had flowers mostly plastic, but some had natural flowers and flower pots placed on the ground. The most popular adornment was surprisingly the American flag. Nationalism and patriotism did not escape the dead. The sign at the entrance could as well be read July4th or removed entirely as there can be no end to a season for patriotism. Some stones had the picture of the dead person's face on the stone. The oldest person I saw was born in 1811.

While I was making these silly observations, I got a call from my wife and I decided to head back to my car to go home. While I was going back, I saw an old white woman adjust some flags and decorations on the burial grounds of someone she probably was related to. The dead could have been a soldier. She gave me a distrustful stare. I smiled and said an audible “Hello"! She continued staring at me without a reply. I did not want to bother her anymore and continued walking towards my car.

My car was parked about half a mile away from where I was and the road I was walking was narrow with tall trees on the side with grass lawn. A few yards from where I was on the road, I had to take a right to go to my car and I saw the old lady, I saw earlier, driving a white van taking a left towards me. She was still staring at me and I came out of my philosophical self to being myself - regular pragmatic cynic. I can see why she had a distrustful look. There she was the lightest white old woman taking care of the ground under which her loved one was laid and here I was the darkest brown guy who could not have anyone buried there related to me to the sixth degree. I quickly took two steps to the right onto the grass and slipped behind a tree to let her pass by me. I did not want to be buried there from an accident caused by an angry old woman. I wanted to live another day. I saw her pass by me, with her continued mistrustful stare that truly caused me discomfort. I continued my walk to my car and I was greeted by another old lady who was jogging there. I regained my composure, went to my car and drove home slowly to have lunch with my wife.