Dead Poets

Even though my dad died nearly 20 years ago, until I moved into this neighborhood--a neighborhood that abuts his final earthly address--I didn't visit him very often.  I still don't visit a lot, but I do like wending my way uphill and through those now-spiffy black gates of Calvary Cemetery, where my dad and brother Mike (who died 17 years ago) share a small place.

I really like living near two cemeteries, and I don't say that ironically, either.  Still, I sometimes feel guilty steering Finn up "L" Street to Calvary's entrance, worried that some invisible employee behind the smoked-glass windows can see right through the thin veneer of my former Catholic self.  Some days, I can almost hear him tsk-tsking me while his hand feels for the tiny "eternal emergency" button underneath the counter.

Generally,  a cemetery is a sauntering place, although I tend to pick up the pace a bit, at least until I find the granite stone with "RAGLIN" chiseled into it.  If I can just make it to this grave, where two crumbling brick roads meet, then, surely, they will call off the dogmas, so to speak.  Surely, if the employee sees me hunkered close to the ground, running my hands along the large serif type, he'll think I belong, if only for a minute or two.

I visited my dad and brother just this afternoon, pulled there by Finn, who wasn't ready to end our walk.  Normally, I like to bring along a nice river rock or find a good leaf to place atop the handsome gravestone, some marker that says I was here.  Today, though, I was empty-handed, so I simply took a small stick that already was resting on their gravestone and turned it 90 degrees, hoping one of them might notice.

Cemeteries, I've decided, are full of these secret messages, evidence of our desire to touch base somehow.  My mom planted a yew next to the gravestone soon after my dad died.  It's now threatening to take over the small plot, slowly erasing my name, because I'm the youngest.  Soon enough, I suppose, it will simply say "James H. and Sally Raglin--parents of Mike, Steve, Jack, Ann, ..."  my name eaten up in greenery.

A walk through a cemetery isn't just about me and my family, though.  At Calvary, it also means I check in on my friends' families, too.  I tell myself that it is enough to pass quietly and nod at Mrs. Clifford, Mr. Rowson, Mr. Lawlor and all the rest who surely have someone missing them as well.

In a cemetery, I like being the stranger who misses these people, their histories but fuzzied question marks in my mind.  I take my duty seriously, letting my eyes linger on the bare-boned details of their extinguished lives--when they lived, who still remains, what it is that might have done them in.  And I take imaginary notes for myself, pondering form and fonts, flora and farewells for my own exit.

My dad and brother both knew the value of a well-told story.  I imagine that, on some nights when the sky is clear and the moon is busting out all over, people whose homes bump up against Calvary are awakened by the cackling laughter of my dad and brother, another rotten joke shared between them.   I honor them and all the others who rest there as well,  by leaning in to hear the stories that waft up from the warm ground below me.