From the Recesses – The Day of the Dead

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A few years ago the cemetery lost my grandfather.

He’d been buried almost a quarter century before and I’d be surprised if anyone had visited his grave in twenty of those years.  We all loved Grandpa Ray, it wasn’t that we were glad to be rid of him or cursed his memory.  Rather, it just isn’t the custom in my family to make manifest the connection between the living and the dead in the physical space of their repose.  Which, I suppose, is a fancypants way of saying “don’t expect visitors” once you’re in the ground.   We do mourn.  We do share stories and heal as best we can – knowing the wounds and the joys of the loss and the love are both terminal.  Then, as time passes, the reverie recedes into our hearts and our consciousness and we say goodbye alone.

Knowing that Grandma was nearing the end of her contract (at least for this go round) my mother made her way to Vestal Hills Cemetery, and asked the groundskeeper where, exactly, Ray Parker had been earthed.  A visit to the manager’s office yielded many papers, a few maps, nervous laughter, furrowed brows, scratched heads, and a final, “Ummm, sorry Mrs. Tallon, but… ah… um… he doesn’t seem to be here.”

Excuse me?

“Well, sure he’s here, of course he’s here.  I’m certain he’s here.  Do you remember where he was…?   No…?  Of course, Mrs. Tallon…  Look, I’ll,  I’ll call first thing tomorrow.”

Mom came home and with some nervous tension told the family that the cemetery had lost Grandpa.  Someone made a joke about him slipping out for a drink.  Same old Ray.  Ha ha ha.  And each of us quietly wondered if the cemetery management just figured we’d forgotten about Ray and resold the plot.

That’s not a very good feeling.

In the end, they found him.  There are no standing stones at Vestal Hills, only marble plaques flush to the ground.  Well, it seems that  some years before a drunken gravedigger had taken out the Parker marker with his backhoe by mistake.  Keeping the dead buried is a business.  The backhoe driver didn’t have the money to fix it.  The cemetery wasn’t going to fix it on their dime and figured that eventually we’d show up to foot the bill.  We did.

But in the end, Ray was there and he wasn’t complaining about the view.    A few years later, my grandmother joined him.  I love her as much as I’ve ever loved another human being, but I haven’t been to visit her, either.

Several months ago a friend of mine died here in Guatemala.  He was a young man of 25 years.  He’d been ill, and we all knew that.  But, still, when he went it was a terrible shock.

His family came to be with his friends in Antigua in the week following Chris’ death.  We raised a glass, shared some stories, and gave our weak condolences to one another.  His mother and father promised to return in early September to visit us again on what would have been his 26th birthday.

They took Chris’ body home for a cremation, and when they returned, they brought some of his ashes back for an internment in the Cementerio General in Antigua.  Chris’ girlfriend, Evelyn, and I went with them to the graveyard.   There were the standard screw-ups with the bureaucracy, and on his plaque the monument company had mis-inscribed the date of his death.  Because of this, we couldn’t place the plaque that day and his parents were scheduled to fly back to the States the following morning.  I promised his family that I would make sure that all was taken care of  within a week.  I assured them that I would return to take a photo to let them know that all was well.

For weeks I didn’t.

Life got in the way, and as I’ve learned since then, that’s a pretty shitty excuse for failing to remember those we’ve lost.

Finally, I did return to take some photos of Chris’ grave for his folks.  Although I’d been there a short time before, I didn’t remember the exact place of Chris’ grave.

I lost Chris.  Or someone had.  I was both ashamed for not having returned before this, but also pissed at the Cemetery for being so irresponsible.  “How dare they…?”  Was much easier on the soul than “How dare I…?”

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