Rest Easy

Here we are creeping up on Halloween the time when we embrace the dead in the form of ghosts and ghoulies of every description. The roots are metaphysical and retain little of that deeper meaning for most of us in today’s world. Today Halloween is about decorating, dressing up and giving candy to little kiddies. In my mind that is the way it should be.

Of course we should remember those that went before us and hopefully learn from their lives. I, like most everyone, remember my dead often and wish there was some way to communicate with them. On my terms of course, I think I would shit myself if the spirit of my dead father or mother appeared before me in a ghostly state. Very likely, my heart would stop and I would be able to spend endless eons with them. I think I should just cherish the memories and leave it at that.

When Louise was a little girl her family lived on a dead end street. At the end of this particular dead end street there happened to be a graveyard. In her child’s way of looking at the world this made a lot of sense and she thought that every dead end street ended at a graveyard. If the world made sense that is exactly the way it would be.

We had occasion to go to a graveyard when we were visiting Toronto earlier this month. We took the opportunity to peel the years of overgrown grass and leaves from Louise’s mom and dad’s stones. We cleaned them as well as we could and took a few minutes to commune with their spirits. Personally I doubt there were any spirits there, but there was something that commanded reverence. I had the feeling that respect was earned by those whose remains filled and respect is the way you should behave.

In Calgary there is a field of crosses that is erected along Memorial drive a few weeks before Remembrance Day. Every year it grows in size and this year there are 3200 crosses with the names of veterans that have given their lives. When you walk among the names of those brave men and women you can’t help but feel the same reverence there is in any graveyard. I know that there are no remains under the crosses, but I felt the same as I did when we were at the cemetery in Toronto. It is respect I suppose.

This year I plan to spend more time walking in cemeteries, looking at the names of the people entombed there and the dates when they walked the earth. Some had lived long and prosperous lives and some had barely lived at all. Some lived lives that made the world a better place and some made it a worse world I guess. Good or bad, they all ended up underfoot and the world grew up over them and continues to do so.

I hope that they approve of how the world has grown and they can rest easy.