Cemeteries are peaceful.
The tombstones and empty paths hold a stillness you don’t find anywhere else.
Here, I can reflect. Honor my loved ones. Just be. No one is watching. No one expects anything.
I've already written a Hive post about Undas, a tradition to celebrate for our loved ones who have passed. However, I'd like to write more about our trips to the cemetery, which we often do spontaneously.
We visit family members who have transitioned and talk to them, ensuring they know we haven't forgotten them. But it's also an accessible road to the town center 🤭
All those things aside, one of the best things about being at the cemetery, weirdly enough, is that you find a different kind of peace you usually can't find anywhere else. Other than the RIP kind, of course (excuse the pun, I can't help it!).
I know there are churches, prayer rooms and temples for that...
But usually in these holy places, especially in the Roman Catholic Church where I belong, you kind of feel guilty for staying there and not really "praying" at all.
By prayer, I mean that ritualistic communication with the God we believe in.
Weirdly enough, going to the cemetery and visiting my loved ones is one of my kinds of chill (not the chilling chill though). An undisturbed introspection.
Now this might come insensitive to other people, but hold up for a second.
In a cemetery, no one notices you coming in and out, and nobody cares.
There are also deep realizations whenever I visit the cemetery. Just standing there close to my family's grave... I sometimes think about the fact that six feet under the ground, the people I used to spend time with are there. Trying to let that sink in can be mind-blowingly difficult.
And so I light a candle as if it sends a "signal" to the afterlife of my visit. Other times, when I have it, I light an incense believing in Taoist tradition that the smoke carries our messages and prayers.
There's a part of me that believes they are not there and that they are somewhere else, which is probably true if you believe in the afterlife. But when I go to the extreme end of the idea, what I have in there are no longer the people I love, but are just remnants of who they used to be.
Although that is a morbid and uncomfortable thought, it's kind of real, right? They're no longer there, and we're still here commemorating or honoring them and lighting candles on their grave, hoping they will be able to feel our love and honor of the memories.
If you just think about that and take a minute to appreciate it, it really shows what humans believe love is. It's amazing that we live in a logical world, yet there is something eternal that you cannot contain or limit that you just had to express it.