Maps and Graves

Standing in front of the grave of my great grandparents this weekend, my grandmother begins to weep. She tells my sister and I that she pictures her mother lying in her coffin underneath our feet, eyes closed and peaceful as if asleep, in her best dress. I remember it from the day we buried her, it is light pink and old fashioned. I never saw her wear anything like it while she was alive. She preferred brown sweaters and an apron, her only extravagance she allowed herslef was the pure gold crucifix hanging around her neck.
I ask her if it gives her comfort to picture her mother's body there as it was when she saw it for the last time. She is overcome again and she never answers. I want to know if she feels her soul in this place, if she believes it resides in her lifeless body. Somehow she feels close to her here.
My mother refuses to come to the cemetary with her. The people my mother has loved and lost are not where thier bodies lie, she repeatedly tells her own mother. She prefers to keep them close to her heart in memories of thier life.
I am fascinated by the cemetary, and will always accomapny my grandmother when she asks. It gives me the same feeling as visiting the Hungarian Greek Orthodox church did as a child. Although never a catholic, I love the symbols and rituals and dark mystery of this religion. It is linked with my vision of the eastern european half of me, a language I can't speak or understand, blood relatives I have never met practicing unknown traditions across a vast ocean.
Together we wander up and down the neat rows, my sister watching the dates on the gravestones, morbidly looking for children so she can imagine thier sad stories and wonder what happened to them. Maybe all of us are looking for our own mysteries here. My grandmother and I are reading the names, trying to match the country to the sound. So many slavic bodies in this western grave. How many similar stories to my own grandparents are buried here with them I wonder? Stories of poverty and soviet oppression, wars and endless work in fields and farms, revolution, uprising, hope and escape in the middle of the night.
Later that eveing we pour over a map of the old country, and my grandmother points out births and homes and schools and meeting places on border lines and small dots. A strong woman harvests grain and kills chickens alone while her only daughter is tearfully sent to a far away convent, her only chance at an education. From the fields she hovers over the stove, simmering small meals for one, she eats quickly to get to the next task. When darkness comes she must be able to collapse with exhaustion, leaving no time for thoughts of her missing husband, a prisoner of war in a foreign land. She sleeps as if she will not wake, as she lies now in a pink dress in the home of her granddaughter and great granddaughters, who try to imagine her life, even as she is here so we never have to.

On Death

Death is the ultimate in everyday experience. Unique in that it can only be discussed by those who have yet to take their last breath. Bodies shut down and become food for the worms or burn to ash in glorious flame. Death is an experience for the living. To make sense of it, we perform rituals for the protection and salvation of the departed soul, gather with friends and family and accept gifts of food we cannot possibly eat, shed what seems like endless tears, view the body one last time before the expensive box lid is shut forever, view old photographs and tell stories to any poor soul who will listen in our grief. Maybe if we remember them vividly enough, some part of them will remain alive, with us in this world.
What do I have to say on the subject of death? I'm no authority. I have the same human fear of the concept as everyone else, buried somewhere deep within, unconfronted and unbattled. Still only a concept because if I get to close to the thought that I will oneday breathe my last breath my chest tightens with involuntary panic and my brain yells to me "next subject, next subject!"
But what if we must confront this reality, our fears of death in order to fully live our lives? Maybe the opposite also holds true. Maybe only those who fully live their lives, each embraced string of moments can lay down one final time satisfed and ready for whatever may come next.
I want to embrace this ultimate truth of reality: I am going to die. So is everyone that I love. You are going to die, and so is everyone you love. This is all there is, life and death. Everything in existence is impermanant and in a state of constant change. The only time that exists is the present moment. Live in it, it's the only thing we have. Besides death, of course, which I can live with.
Don't say prayers for my dearly departed soul when I have taken my last breath. It will be too late. Don't visit my grave. I won't be there, I promise. Burn everything I ever wrote. Throw my body in the fire while you're at it if you wish. Think of a memory now and then if you wish. Don't dwell on it. Don't hold on to me, my time here will be over, but you will still have many moments that are only yours to live. Sing and dance and cry and then let me go.
Nothing in this world is permanent. The present is the only moment in time. Let go of your fears and attachments and live your moments now. We are all going to die.