I paid the cemetery a visit this morning. I don't make this a consistent practice for a variety of reasons, but I popped over to Barnes and Noble to get a couple books a good friend of mine recommended, and the mighty graveyard is between there and home. The car sort of steered its way there. That tends to be how these visits go: all of a sudden the urge will strike, so I go.
This cemetery holds all kinds of memories for me that are not necessarily related to coffins and sadness. Nanny and Aunt Grace both lived just blocks from here (in separate directions) and Nanny used to let me drive her silver Ford Granada all over the graveyard when I was not yet of age to take to the real streets. She would smoke her cig and I would try not to take out every gravestone on every corner. Aunt Grace was an avid walker, and would walk for hours here. Sometimes my running route will take me through, including a Memorial Day six years ago when the skies opened up on me and my not-water-resistant phone.
Hazelwood Cemetery is adjacent to the national cemetery, which is very beautiful. Unfortunately, both of these places of rest are just across the street from Springfield's only mall. The ambiance leaves a bit to be desired unless you choose to block out the fact that a 300-pound guy in a "Suck It" t-shirt is across the way devouring a greasy piece of Sbarro pizza and downing an Orange Julius while you pay your respects to your lost loved one(s). I choose to let the white trash momentum of retail in the Ozarks not spoil the occasional tender moment here in Hazelwood.
I don't visit here frequently because a) these folks aren't really here and b) I have a tendency to lose it when I stop by. However, those buried here held grave visits in high regard, so I know what it would mean to them for me to come by. I doubt they are up in heaven with a scorecard, tallying my proximity to their remains, but I still think it matters in the grand scheme.
In the southwest corner of Hazelwood are several of my people: my Mom was the first in this plot, with a small flat stone which was all Dad could afford at the time. He has since added a larger stone to accompany the original. Next to Mom are her parents--my beloved Nanny and Papa--and Auntie Grace, Aunt Pat (Mom's sister) and my Uncle Johnny.
Uncle Johnny was Nanny's younger brother, who (in my time around him, anyway) was a lot of fun, mostly because I'm fairly certain he was just drunk enough most of the time. He lived with Nanny for a bit after we moved out and is responsible for 90% of the ciggie burns on the tan couch on which I sat for the bulk of my childhood. Uncle Johnny's nickname for Nanny was "Boobie," which thrilled me to no end.
Needless to say, a cemetery stop-in honors multiple people who have left us. But my attention is usually paid to my mom. I can be fine--chipper, solid, smiling--and I still just break to pieces there. I suppose there is something cathartic about an occasional release like that. As a child, sometimes when Dad would take us to visit, he would hold us tightly while we all wept. It was the only time we were really allowed to collectively acknowledge this horror we had all endured. Hearing Dad cry always made me somehow feel better. I felt less alone.
Today was true to form: I knelt there in the shadow of the mall and sobbed, wondering how I could miss someone so much whom I barely knew. Then I turned to Nanny--my savior--and knew how I could miss someone so much whom I did know.
That's grief. That's loss. How great is it, though, to love like that? And how great is it to drive away to the living, and to life above ground?
"You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp." --Anne Lamott
I'm grateful for the limp.
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