Graveyard Groupie

It seems I'm making a  habit  of visiting your final place of rest once each of the three seasons.  Oh, what a strange thing it is to visit  this place.  You are not there.  Only your  bones are there but that is the closest I will get to being with you.  I understand now why people go to visit these empty places....I think.

I arrive in the morning with a cup of coffee and stand at your cold stone.  Sometimes I stay a few minutes, sometimes a half hour.  At some point during each visit I end up texting a friend to  say  I  am having coffee with dead Jerry and chuckle.  This is only year one and I wonder if I will always do this.  or will the need to come here wear off eventually?

I hate the sterility of this graveyard.  Maybe all graveyards.  I never stepped foot in one except for  actual burials at various funerals.  One of the first thoughts I have when visiting you is that you are surrounded by old guys,  not your peers.  Again, I know I am just visiting a pile of buried bones yet  the thought comes anyway.  You are immediately surrounded by Jack, James, Helen and Rita.  The youngest  was born in 1924, the oldest 1921.  Beyond them are Albert, Alexander and some other old guys.  Oh, but then there is poor Deanne who was born in 1981. Her parents bought two stones for her, oh their grief I can only imagine.  I don't want to imagine.

The aloe vera plant I so carefully placed beside your stone is gone.  It is not allowed, you know.  Here  you must abide by the rules.  You can place a wreath or put flowers in a vase provided by this institution that is attached permanently to the stone.  You don't have one of those.  I would not deposit flowers in this manner anyway...it is not you.  Wouldn't it be  nice to be able to plant flowers around the stone that speaks to the person you were. Aloe vera.  For healing.  I will not get in trouble for dropping tobacco all around your stone so I do.  I am sure you would love a cigarette if only you could have one.  Wherever you are. Tobacco is also an offering.  I give it for both reasons so this gesture speaks to both of us.

I am getting used to this place a little bit more.  This last visit I sat on the hard concrete bench that is provided and I sent  you love via a feeble attempt at meditating.  No matter, I sent love and it is the thought that counts.  I choose to believe you can feel love even in the afterlife.  I get comfort from Eben Alexander's words from his book Proof of Heaven:  A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife. Love is more than we can ever perceive in this life.  It is so much bigger.  I choose to believe that.

On a final note, I have never seen anyone else in this graveyard.  Maybe because it is too damn far.  Maybe because nobody thinks to visit dead people in the morning.  To me it is ideal.  The start of a new day.  Crisp air.  A time to pay respect.

I have 'tucked you  in' for the winter.  See you in the Spring.

Lots of Love   from the other side.