Friday, January 26, 2018

Walking among the stones and monuments of graves where no one has laid flowers in a hundred years. An urn. A weeping angel. A lamb. A sleeping child. I do the math in my head. 26 years old. 86. 2 months. My age. I try to read the stories, distilled to names and dates, chiseled into crumbling granite and slate. The man who remarried, the second wife, the second chance. The spinster daughter. The war. I try to imagine their world. A world where they had a king. A world where they had slavery. Reading books by kerosene lantern. Cold, cold winters and storms with no warning. Hot summers and long, homespun dresses. I see a headstone with a beginning and no end, an unfinished account. 1881- . What happened? Where did he go? Lost at sea? Died in prison? Took his last breath somewhere where no one knew that he already had a spot reserved where he could spend eternity. Buried his wife at 40 and then just moved on. I pause and read the words, the brief lines lifted from Psalms, from poems, from the Book of Common Prayer. Some grieving wife, or son or brother, or mom or dad, through contemplation and tears that I can only speculate about, decided that these were the words which this soul should carry with it forever. The tiny grave of an infant, on the very furthest edge of the cemetery. Our Baby. Why there, on the edge? No money? No baptism? A little soul in Limbo, even now, after all this time? How absurd. I consider the memento mori: skulls with wings. Remember, Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return. And it doesn’t make me feel sad or scared. It makes me glad to be there, to read the names and do the math, and remember the people that no one brings flowers for. Because one day, no matter how kind or cruel I am during my lifetime, my own long story will be abridged- a name, some dates, an epitaph. Will anyone hear me as they walk by, calling out from a silent stone? Speak my name! Remember me! I was here! I lived!

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