A Walk Through the Cemetery

I walked into a cemetery this morning. There, scattered about the balls of dandelion seeds and neatly trimmed grass, where the remnants of lives once lived and dreams once dreamt. I wondered about those dreams, and the loss that each of these names must have felt as those moments shattered like fragile glass. I wondered about the suffering and pain each must have felt in their life, and perhaps even in their death. I wondered about the moments when the tears of both laughter and remorse, of both happiness and sorrow, ran free down the faces of those of whom I now kept sacred company.

I see littered about me the names of husbands and wives laying in eternal togetherness. I see the names of  mothers and their sons, of fathers and their daughters. I see the dates marking the beginning and the end of what once was. I see the faded remnants of those who lived so long ago, and the deeply carved names etched in shiny stone of those who may have walked this ground not too long ago.

I wonder then when it will be my turn. What will my stone say? What name will be stamped next to my own, and what story will it tell? To whom will I lay next to, eternally embraced in our own, sleepy romance? The world is but a cruel place, and perhaps there will be peace when I am finally able to let everything be put to rest.

I have searched so long for some meaning in the journey between the dates that will be stamped upon my marker. A place like this seems like home. To the man who seems so found when he is lost, and so lost when he is found, there is no better place to realize the short time he has remaining. I wonder when the sound of the stones crunching beneath my feet will go silent, and when the morning Sun will shine beyond my ability to see it. I wonder when both night and day will look the same, and when the tears will fade to nothing but a distant memory, and I wonder if I will have nothing but dirt and worms by my side.

When it was time for me to go, I said a silent goodbye to my new teachers, to those who have come before me. I bend to touch the stone of one who was but a child. I am unsure if he is lucky or unfortunate, but I utter some quiet words of hope that he was somewhere in between. We are all, it seems, somewhere in between.