Entered Into Rest…

I enjoy walking around in cemeteries. As many of you know, there's one that makes up the back landscape at my house and while it isn't a particularly large or spectacular cemetery, it's a wonderful place. I walk Oliver out there, always careful to keep him from bothering mourners or from leaving unpleasant remainders of his presence. With or without the dog, however, it's a wonderful place to explore and I feel like I find something new every time I go there. Sometimes it's the wildlife – there have been a couple of deer sighted, along with the countless crows and squirrels, meandering cats, and even the occasional groundhog. That's not all of it, though.

There's a sense of peace – a sad peace in some ways, but a peace nonetheless. Cemeteries are generally quiet and lovely – rolling hills and landscaping, towering trees and colorful flowers dancing in the breeze. I cannot ever separate myself from the countless tears that made the soil fertile, or the broken hearts that have seeped into every corner of these places, but there's also a gorgeous sense of history, a lingering tranquility, and an almost fervent celebration of life. For those who have left the markers of their loved ones here, they carry on in defiance of their loss. They visit these places not as a morbid reminder of what is gone – but rather a concrete marker of what will always live on. Our loved ones are never gone from us, we know this. So, we look for places where they have left their mark, or where we have built markers for them. And the markers can be so exquisitely beautiful.

Those who know me know that I am not a religious person. I don't much care for the message of religious institutions in a general sense, and so my relationship with the Divine has found its own Way. But that is not to say that I don't find beauty in churches and cathedrals, and in the markers we erect in these places that are intersection of life and death, permanence and passage, sorrow and joy, past and present, yesterdays and tomorrows. The upturned face of the weeping angel, the outstretched hands of Mary, the child enveloped in the arms of St. Anthony. So many beautiful carven images – so many dreams, wishes that when we leave this place, we are taken elsewhere, where there is love and peace and release from toil.

I love to read the names  – walking amongst the stones and reading messages and epithets that tell stories without telling them. Wife. Loving Husband. US Army. From County Cork. Infant child. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. So small, so sweet, so soon. Worn dates and faded names, moss growing on etched stone. These are powerful images and powerful places. Words of comfort and memory from those who are now nothing but memory themselves.

These souls are not my souls, these names are not my names – except they are. The story of human love and human suffering, etched in stone and surviving through the ages. A name here, a date there, a marble lamb, an angel with wings unfurled. Beauty and sadness rolled into one.

There is more to say, but there are pictures I want to share and words I want to get just right. I will go again…and I will write again.