The things we leave behind for those who have gone ahead

In all honesty, cemeteries scare the living hell out of me. The two cemetery funerals I have been to, my amazing Aunt Ruthie's and my beautiful friend Mike's, was enough for me to never step into a cemetery again, but as creepy as it may sound, it is a terrifyingly, beautifully calm place to be. While Cassie was here last week, she and I visited her family plot at Evergreen Cemetery. It may have taken me a solid half hour to step out of the car and take the cap off my lens, but after I took off on my own while Cassie did some writing, I eventually found my rhythm within the gravestones. 

As I was walking around snapping photos of things I thought interesting, I began to notice all the little items placed at the graves. I never really thought about anything besides flowers being put by a grave but as I looked around, I began to see porcelain bunnies, plastic birds, stone angels, action figures and even sad, old withered teddy bears. Some were standing upright on graves and others beside them, but some were strewn about the graves as if stormy nights had sent them in all directions.

I found it strangely familiar to the Egyptians leaving material things in the tombs of queens and pharaohs as if they would be comforted by them in the afterlife. I even imagined men visiting their mother's graves, blowing air through the wings of those plastic birds that flutter in the breezes, reminding them of when they were young boys watching their mothers smile at the colourful birds splashing in bird fountains in their backyard. I pictured young mothers laying on the ground clutching little stone angels in front of the smallest of graves, mourning the tiny skeletons a few feet below who were taken too soon. And then there was I, trying to make out the smudged words on the gravestones of people who lived in the 1800's, with the most peculiar names and wondering about their stories. 

I'm the glass half-full kind of person who loves happy endings and usually refuses to watch horror movies or read books with sad ends, therefore I am not the kind of person to dwell on unhappy thoughts nor spend hours in a cemetery for any reason other to accompany a friend visiting her family plot. However, it is riveting how one can spend hours in acres riddled with the skeletons of dead people, yet drive away feeling incredibly alive.