I had to chase a package down this morning and ended up going way out of my way. Deciding I needed a bagel and iced coffee, I went to Dunkin Donuts and decided to go home over the toll bridge for a change.
As I drove by the cemetery I looked right and thought I saw a bear climbing a tree...I decided to drive in and see if I was seeing correctly.
When I drove in the gates I was struck by the beauty of a mausoleum with life-sized colorful statues of a man dressed like a monk holding a baby, and a woman dressed an angel standing next to him on a raised covered stage of red granite...There was a heart that had their two initials in it saying they loved each other forever. He was already there, but not her. I thought how she must miss him as I drove to see the bear and take my walk.
There was a service or viewing going on in the chapel, but not too many cars. I parked my car after driving past several people placing bright bouquets on the graves of what I thought must be their mothers or grandmothers as this is Mother's Day weekend. I drove past a man in a suit talking to two people also dressed formally. As I drove by, I heard him say, "I'm a Polack, we love the Irish people..."
I parked beneath a shady tree and walked up to the sight I had come to investigate. Lo and behold I was right. There was this little bear carved in a real tree stump above the grave of a couple. I can't remember how long they have been buried there and unfortunately, this photo I took with my phone camera doesn't have enough white balance to show how cute the bear is or how much detail was put into the sculpture. Trust me, it's cute and very clever and I want to know the story behind it someday.
After taking a few pictures despite the uncooperative sun, I decided to spend some more time walking around that area of the cemetery. I'd been there about a year ago to the funeral of the father of a friend of mine. This time was a lot different. As a person who sells life insurance for a living, I was seeing the headstones with new eyes. What I saw certainly "bears" up what I tell people when I sit down with them to talk about what could happen. There were a few couples who died within a short time of one another, but not nearly as many who had spent a good 20 years without the other spouse. And departures were not always in later years.
The were people born same year as me that have been there since I graduated high school and others since I graduated college in the small space I walked...about an acre or 100 graves. Relatively speaking there were about five or six babies and a few young kids, some buried next to or with their parents' plots. Several 30-40 somethings and a handful of people who had buried grown children before they died. And there were some long lived men who'd lost their wives 20 years before their number came up. If I could, I'd take some people I've met with on this short tour. Would that I could.
After walking around for a half hour my hair was starting to sizzle on top of my head and I decided it was time to go. Got in my car and thanked God for the lessons I'd just learned and for enormity of all the lives I'd just walked past.
As I drove to the gate down a different path, I passed a grave with a SpongeBob balloon flying from it. While processing what that probably meant, I turned onto the road to the gate I'd entered through and I saw it -- The harbinger of one's final day "above ground" (for those who choose to be interred) -- the giant rolling green tent with two rows of pretty chairs draped in green velvet. It was positioned in front of that mausoleum with the monk and the angel. It was her in the chapel!! I felt sad, but also glad that she'd be joining him there any moment now, forever, indeed.
Annie Quicksilver
5-8-2010
