GRAVEYARDS ARE MOURNFUL PLACES

Or are they?

I love this photo, borrowed with permission from a friend. When he posted it last week, I was just lost in it. Obviously he was catching the perfect shot of a spider and her web, but with the sun rising over the church yard and gravestones, he caught much more. Wouldn't it make a perfect book cover?

The dying fall leaves and web are in sharp focus with the church and graveyard muted in the background.

Food for thought.

At this time of year, as we put away the flipflops and bring back the woolies, fright movies are taking up space on our TV watching roster and a lot of scenes depict graveyards and old churches. There's something about it. All over Europe, people flock to see churches and church ruins. Many local people have made the pilgrimage to St. Anne de Beaupre in Quebec. Something primal and occult but drenched in Christianity.

My father and grandparents are buried in St. Alexis graveyard, just up the hill, yet I rarely visit them, mostly because when I think of them, I don't think of them as being in a grave. To me they aren't there, they're everywhere.

My dear old friend Bea White...........she's in my heart and my mind, I think of her all the time, but I never think of her as I saw her for the last time, heading for St. Alexis Cemetery.

Remembrance Day isn't far away, and graveyards get heavier visitation around that time. It's a great chance to show respect and do a little visiting/praying while we're there. I hope you readers will stay along for my Armistice post in November, I already have it written, and I quite enjoyed it.

But a walk through a graveyard...........what fodder for stories! The little pioneer Acadian Cemetery in Lower Rollo Bay is one like many others. That red dirt lane to the shore was once the main highway for people to get from Rollo Bay to the water. The first St. Alexis Church was built down here, not up on the hill. Hence the graveyard, which faces the ocean, not the Highway. That's because that highway was built after the fact. Land was expropriated and the "new" highway, circa 1965 was wrapped through the fields away from the shore. I remember it clearly, because the big equipment moved through our own driveway at the time, creating a longer and new lane. The original church was about where Nancy and Alvin's cottage is now, so it makes sense that the two stones which remain tell us that they faced the church.

Anyhoo......

Who doesn't like a good fright, I mean the kind that scared us shitless when we were kids. For some reason, graveyards, where we should feel the safest and most loved, seem to push old fears to the surface. And hasn't everyone at some point said, "I dare you to walk through the church after dark.....and go down in the basement........" Which I hear contains many old statues left for storage that look as if they could turn their heads and talk.

Again, isn't that the safest place on earth? Why would most of us rather eat worms than venture into a pitch black church? The stuff of nightmares, I can tell you. Even back in the day when Father Floyd did a midnight vigil at Easter, and intoned the names of every parishoner who passed away that year, the shivers ran down my back. It was as if they were right among us, his voice echoing throughout the church, candles flickering, organ music playing. And I was surrounded by people. A church at night? Creeeeeeeepy.

And another thing. Years ago I worked a short stint at the Bayview Lodge and evening shifts were mandatory. I didn't mind the 3:00-11:00 shift, it went by fast. But I'll never forget the first time I drove home after 11:00 and decided for some unknown reason to drive through Rollo Bay and come down the road from the crossroad. Calling it a dark night wouldn't cut it, it was one of those fall evenings when it's dark by 6:00 and the clouds are skudding by the moon and you can see the skeletons of the trees, rendered naked of their leaves.

All these things were apparent on this one night, it was black as ink. Except ......when you drove past the St. Alexis Cemetery. All of a sudden the place took on an eerie glow......so many twinkling solar lights peering through the fog, as if alive and winking at me. A generation ago, before there was such a thing as solar yard lights a graveyard at night was already the stuff of nightmares. "Nightmare on Elm Street" move over. "The Changling" still one of my all time favorites.

But all these lights, giving comfort to the grieving, threw me for a loop, I didn't expect that. It was positively creepy. If my car had quit on me as I drove down the hill to the safety of home, I would have faked my own death.

So thanks Kenny, I am loving your picture. And it gave me pause for thought.

Hallowe'en is around the corner, I'm loving the cooler weather and short days. Might as well. I can't dance. Guess I'll gas up the broom.....