Writings for a Winter Cemetery

If you are a local and you haven't checked out Spring Grove Cemetery, YOU MUST!  We just discovered it as a family in 2015 and I'm deeply sad that I didn't know about it before.  I mean, I'd heard about it.  "It's a nice place to take a walk."  "It's a great place to see Spring flowers."  Sure.  But for reals.  It's a magical place.

So when temperatures topped 60 degrees in mid Winter, I knew I had to stop by even though I only had an hour.

I needed that hour.

I bent down and touched the grass, still soft under my fingers.  I stood amidst a small grove of evergreen trees, listening to the wind blowing the leaves, smelling the aliveness, caressing lightly peeling bark.  I watched the water in the ponds sparkle with the sun and wind.  I exchanged smiles with strangers walking the opposite direction.  We were all friends right then: me, the trees, the water, the grass, the other people who had all come to feel something.

The naked trees got me feeling the most that day.  I love trees so, so much.  I love when they're green, of course, but when the leaves are gone, they're suddenly open, vulnerable, showing what they are inside.  You can see their strong support structure, like a math equation melded with an artist's sculpture.  You can see their fingers reaching out as far as possible into the sky, like they want to touch it.  Like they'll never stop trying to reach it.

And as I stood there, looking at that naked tree, I knew that it was me and I was it.  There are no words for that.  Just a feeling.

Before I got back in my car to leave, I had to stop and look at a specific structure that called to me.  You know, those small buildings that rich people have built to house their remains and honor their family legacy.  This one was particularly lovely.  But what really captured me was that you could see through the gated entrance into a calming, serene space, highlighted by a warm stained glass window.  Everything about it invites you in.  And the gate was locked.

The lock felt like such an intrusion to me.  It didn't belong to this space and yet, there it was, adding a cold touch to what otherwise felt perfect.  And it just turned the whole thing around in my mind.  Who are the chains for?  Who locks them?  The structure invites in, but the chains forbid it.  Who or what are the angels guarding?  And why?

With those answers, questions, and non-answers on my mind, I drove away.