Once upon a time I spent many a night at one of the 3 or 4 cemeteries in town. Then we would hit Denny's for some early AM hours food. Ah, those were the days.
Yes, night. My brother and myself would sit upon a bench in one of the local cemeteries and under the moon and the stars we would ponder our existence, or some such thing. We had some of the best conversations there.
As a child my mother took us to have a picnic at a cemetery in Fall River, Mass. It was quite huge, and old and impressive. We were visiting my grandfather, and Lizzie Borden..but that is a story for another day.
As a teen I toured the cemetery in Mooresville, NC with my grandmother, who actually happened to know every single person buried there and their stories. Fascinating.
But in my years as a long term care nurse I frequently meet people in the last years of their life, many times I am there with them in their last days. People I have taken care of and loved and befriended, gone. I always feel sad. Though they are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s they have had long successful lives but it's still sad.
Anyway, many, many of them are buried or interred at one particular location and when I go visit my grandfather I usually wander the rows reading the flat metal plates that have every name and birthdate on them. I always find more and more names I recognize and I always ask God to bless them. This agnostic is not above asking whatever higher being that is out there to take care of my patients that I have loved.
I have a box full of obituaries. Names of some of my favorite people I have known, sometimes I read them just to remember. It makes me sad and happy. Sad they are gone but happy I was lucky enough to know them.
I believe death is the beginning to something else. I am not sure what. But I want to believe that those wonderful people are somewhere in another plane happy and free from any suffering and pain.
And I hope I was able to make as much of a difference in their life as they did in mine.
