A character in the story works at a cemetery, giving guided tours of the statues and graves of famous people. He seems so at ease, even comforted by the cemetery. It reminded me of my own ease with graveyards.
I really like cemeteries. If they feel right. I usually can't describe why they feel right or wrong, but I can tell at first sight. I don't know where this fascination with graveyards came from. I remember playing night games in junior high around the cemetery in Rock Springs and trying to be freaked out, but never really feeling scared. Maybe it started then? Or maybe it goes way back to my first funeral. I think I was probably about 3. I can remember my mom holding me during the graveside service for my baby cousin who was taken away from this world before we ever got to meet him. Perhaps it's fast-forwarded to 11th grade when most of our high school stood in the cold wind as a classmate was buried.
Whatever or why-ever started my love affair with graveyards is a mystery. I can't explain it, but I feel some sort of peace when I am in them. I could sit at my mom's graveside for hours listening to the Wyoming wind thrashing the leaves of the Aspen trees. I imagine her laying there with me, watching the leaves quiver and shine in the sunlight. My dad picked a wonderful gravesite, if I do say so.
Harry's family has plots in a small cemetery in east Texas. It's an old community graveyard and looks as though it is cared for only by the families of those buried there, but it has a homey, almost cozy feel. It's surrounded by forest and has several old hardwoods shading the headstones. Egypt Cemetery, it's called. The name is peculiar to me since, in my mind, East Texas and Egypt really have nothing in common, but that is neither here nor there.
While a student at the University of Houston, I took a class for my sociology minor called The Sociology of Death and Dying. This was probably my most favorite class of my entire college career. Weird, right? Our final project was essentially to "put our affairs in order". Since I won't be around and probably won't care much at that point, I said I could be cremated and my ashes spread between the Rock Springs cemetery and Egypt cemetery with a headstone for people to visit at both, though I left the final decision on this up to Harry; he might have different ideas about this, and that's okay with me.
Sometimes when we drive past cemeteries, I make comments about how I like them, or if I dislike them. I feel confident Harry would put me in my category of a "good" cemetery.
Her Fearful Symmetry got me thinking about how maybe cemeteries add symmetry to my life. As if I need some sort of balance between this life and the next. Perhaps I am an old soul, and have been six feet under before; or maybe above it in a mausoleum - I really love those. Either way, I feel content with cemeteries and the balance they seem to bring to my life.