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I enjoy the digging. Feeling the hard wood in my hands and the metal against my booted foot as I press the shovel into the earth. Separating patches of dirt from one another, becoming one with the roots and insects burrowed deep into the ground.
I love the gentle pressure of a pitch full of earth's glory as I tilt
the shovel down and ease it out from the land. The sounds of the loose dirt hitting the hard ground - again and again - as my hole gets deeper and deeper.
Being a gravedigger is a solitary endeavor. I am not of the echelon of the funeral directors or even those who put make-up on corpses to beautify the newly dead. I deal in the dirty work - figuratively and literally speaking. I work in the place of forever good-byes, of tears and fears and of forgiveness and betrayal.
And yet . . .
And yet, I work in a place filled with beauty. Simple headstones,
marble busts capturing the likeness of the gone, and large ornate tombs. It does not matter which marker represents the dearly departed. They are all in the same place, peace-filled and un-lonely.
My favorite part of the day is when people come to visit. Not me, of course. They never notice me. They are here to be with those who impacted their lives and left them in their perceived suffering. Most times they stand there silently, staring at the headstones so hard, so intensely, it is as if they are trying to deny the truth laid out right before them. Sometimes they speak out loud - to Timothy Finn, Yolanda Jackson, or Moise Stern - to the spirits who visit with me everyday. Those are the best times. Sometimes the visitors confirm what I know to be true about those encased in the earth.
"Timmy was so funny," his mother said, clutching her grief like a
handkerchief.
"Yolanda was no-nonsense," her sister said, with a sad smile and a warm chuckle.
"Moise was quiet but passionate," his wife whispered desperately.
Other times I shake my head at the continued misunderstanding of who and what these people were in life and what the people left behind choose to believe about them.
"Timmy
would never
take his own life." Yes, he would. His humor hid his desolation.
"Yolanda did not like men." Yes, she did. She wanted to desperately be loved, but her betrayals ran too deep.
"Moise never had a thing to say without being prompted." Wait until you find his journals.
They talk to me, you see. Every day and in every way these beauties I place beneath the warm earth reach out to me to tell me their life stories.
They seek understanding and solace, especially those still in shock at the suddenness of their deaths.
Many have gone on, but a few have stayed, helping those newly arrived accept the transformation from human to revolving evolution.
I have tried to figure out why I do this job. Why I have stayed at it for so many years. Why I am not lonely, although I have few friends, no spouse, no lover, and no children. I have come to accept that I am a realized journeyer like that man who shuttles people across the water in that Dante Alighieri novel. I am not here to comfort those left behind, but those on the transitional circuit of crossing over. I do not even remember how old I am because I have learned that one day is a blink in God's eye and that is an eternal amount of time. I wait for nothing, but I know I have every possibility of life coming my way.
I live for the next shovel full of dirt and I quietly anticipate the
next sound of tears or nervous giggle. I live to be closer to life and death. I live to die in each moment and be reborn in the next second. I live for the bliss in time and in stillness.
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