Walking in the Cemetery

November 3, 2020 — Pat Bertram

A friend invited me to go walking with her in the cemetery yesterday, and I jumped at the chance. It’s a pretty place — at least in the daytime — and even historic, containing, as it does, graves of some early settlers. It’s also free of dogs, which are becoming more of a problem all the time.

I found it interesting that yesterday was also All Souls Day, which made the trek apropos. We didn’t encounter a soul — dead or alive — as we meandered along the roads, searching for the grave of someone she knew who had recently died. Many of the graves were decorated with fake flowers. With the advent of silk flowers, I’ve wondered why there is still a market for plastic flowers, and now I know the answer — they are the flower of choice to decorate graves.

As my friend promised, there were no dogs.

With daylight savings time ended, it gets dark early here, and will continue to get darker for the next several weeks. I am so not a fan of the creeping darkness, but it’s even worse now because of working. My shift ends after sunset, and though I don’t worry about walking in the dark — it’s only two blocks on a quiet street. Besides, there’s a streetlight, and I carry a flashlight, so I’m not worried about the darkness as such. What does worry me are the dogs running loose. It’s one thing when it’s light enough for me to see them coming, another to have them approach out of nowhere.

I’ll have a stick, and even some pepper spray that someone gave me, so I should be okay. I’d heard that spraying water is even more effective, but for now, I’ll just stick with what I have and worry about other deterrents later if necessary.

I hope I remember to leave a light on in the house to make it more inviting — somehow it seems so lonely coming home to a dark house, even though I don’t notice any problem in the day.

Despite my reservations, it might be nice walking in the dark. I don’t often do that anymore — mostly because there’s no reason to. It’s too bad that there are just enough lights in town to obscure the stars because I do enjoy walking under the stars. I’ve heard that a vast number of stars are visible just outside of town, but since I don’t like driving at night (or maybe it’s that the night doesn’t like me driving), I haven’t yet explored the possibility.

I hope I don’t sound cranky. Despite unpleasant dogs roaming loose and the creeping darkness, I feel grateful for all I have — a job, a house to come home to, and friends who invite me to go walking in the cemetery.

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What if God decided to re-create the world and turn it into a galactic theme park for galactic tourists? What then?