Something grave

"Graveyard!" I exclaim excitedly to my travelling companion Josh, who had joined me for the first two weeks of my foray to Eastern Canada.  We had driven up the east coast of Nova Scotia and were now in Cape Breton Island on our way to hike the Cabot Trail.  During this first week of being together I had caused no shortage of eye rolls from him in my enthusiasm for pointing out the multitude of neat little graveyards that dotted the sides of the road.  They had little crosses and headstones!  This was exciting to me!  After all, I had grown up in a place where headstones were uncommon.  Plaques parallel to the ground were used for easy lawncare purposes so that graveyards looked merely like rolling grassy hills than a place that monumented where people were buried.  So any graveyard that looked like an actual graveyard thrilled me.

Someone cleared their throat beside me.  "Perhaps you can tell me why you find a graveyard exciting?" A female voice spoke from the passenger seat, her tone not at all approving of my lighthearted appeal for a place of the dead.

I winced, even as I kept my eyes on the road ahead of me. I had forgotten for a moment that we had passengers travelling with us to go hiking who were complete strangers to us.  How does one explain a fetish for graveyards to a person they had just met?  Things in the car had just become very, very awkward.

I blame my childhood. This was before my small town had internet and our TV had only one channel, CBC, so I had a lot of free time.  And I used that free time to read, voraciously.  I steadily made my way through my mom's bookshelves of the books she deemed fit for me to read so it was there that I stumbled upon a Canadian author known as L.M. Montgomery, known internationally for writing the Anne of Green Gables series.  She also wrote a trio of lesser-known books called The Emily of New Moon series.  If I had to point to the instigator for my love of graveyards those books would be the culprit.  In her stories L.M. Montgomery made graveyards out to be mystical storied places where one can reflect upon and celebrate the lives of the people who came before.  They were places for exploration, discovery and adventure - not merely places to mourn.

Even years after growing up, L.M. Montgomery's influence remains on my perspective.  Before I left to the East Coast I spent a few nights visiting my dad's grave on a mountain hillside where I sat on the grass and looked at the moon next to the plaque that held his name.  For me that wasn't a tortured place.  It was a peaceful place. The grass was soft, the air was warm, the breeze was cool, the hills were illuminated with the pale light of a full moon and I felt closer to my father just by being there, enjoying the wonderful moment in his presence.

I explained all this to the woman in the car, feeling for a moment like a graveyard evangelist.  I proclaimed that they can be places of story, history, discovery and celebration of the lives that have come before.  Likewise they can be places of peacefulness, rest, and yes tearful remembrance, but remembrance that can be flavoured with thankfulness for the lives that were.  It was actually very impressive that I was able to explain myself without stumbling awkwardly over my words and so I felt superlatively elated when she admitted that she could see my point.  Score one for positive graveyard indoctrination!