Finally, we have arrived at our destination, the Cemetery, a Gated, (from Sunset to Sunrise) Security Patrolled landscape of headstones, monuments, angels and flat stones of all sizes, and various ages, starting some 200 hundred years ago.
The massive trees, that provide shade, conceal bird nests that are filled with chirping peepers every spring. There are paved streets, like a giant maze, that go around and around, then dump you back out to the streets.
In an attempt to ban the industrious Ladies of the Night that have been known to ply their trade in dark corners, every Entrance / Exit has huge iron gates that are closed and padlocked every night at sundown. I can not say for sure, but do you think the gates keep the dead in or the live out?
Of course the graveyard has lots of benches, set up in the shade cast by the thick foliage of the leaves of the trees, where you can sit and recollect your past and plan your future. The benches are sometimes occupied by the Homeless or those with Mental Health issues, in our midst. Where else do they have to go? They have breakfast, lunch and supper at the local Soup kitchen. It is not like they have money to go shopping or family to visit so a bench in the shade works fine during the long, hot summer. At night the shelters open their doors to give them the dignity of a bed to sleep in. The next morning, the process starts all over again.
Sometimes after complaints from the families of those occupying the plots, the Cemetery Security tell the Homeless to keep moving. Ah, it is always a struggle between the Law-and-Order-Right versus the Do-Gooders-to-the-Left. What are we again, Momma? Oh, yeah, we are Radical-Center-of-the-Road (like everyone should be). I note Momma nods to them, but no talking, to show respect for their privacy, she tells me. I don’t look at them or even wag my tail. Better to be ships that pass in the night, rather than to reject them, (true story, I am so ashamed but I feel their fear and uncertainty and back away if they reach out to pat me) or for me to intimidate, or frighten them. Best case scenario, I am invisible to them.
There are reams of huge, medium, and small flower beds to bedazzle your eyes which are full of plants, flowers, grasses of every size and color that attract butterflies, humming birds and tiny glowing fairies that sparkle like jewels in a crown. (I know they are there, I saw them).
In the midst of all this paradise, the squirrels live, scampering from tree to tree, up the trunks, swinging from branch to branch. I mean, I believe the squirrels are begging me to bring it on. It keeps them in the game, all dashing, flying and shrieking, ‘Nana, nana boo-boo…..you can’t get me’ and they are so right, I can’t.
There was not one inch of that graveyard I did not sniff Pre-Daddy-God-Rest-His Soul. Like the wind, I moved from one section to the next, the world my oyster, sniffing and pawing, well, until, you know…Daddy went to Heaven and Momma wanted him close to her and home and I just can not do that, Momma. I can not tell you what it is, do I smell him, do I sense him, you ask? I do not know what it is but it is too sad for me. I can go to any other part of the cemetery, please Momma, don’t pull me down there. But Momma has a hard, practical head so we are here, let us visit Daddy, her will be done. Like in the poem, ‘In Praise of Older Women’ she bends over Daddy’s grave, willing to wash the limbs of her dead, feel the pain of others by the process of osmosis, and endures forever, hoping in some way to connect with that which was, and ever will be.
OK, I get it Momma, but I am not there yet. I am too young, and far too sensitive. It brings me pain and it brings you pain, so I cannot condone it. I am the Protector, you are the Protected. I will visit anywhere else in the grave yard. Just don’t make me lay by Daddy’s grave. I am sorry. Maybe I am shallow, but I am not like that little doggie that spent his days and nights at his master’s grave.
PS: I read my Job Description carefully and my duties included serving the living. There was nothing about graveyard vigils.
Email: housekeeping@hotdogcoolcats.com
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