The Serenity of a Graveyard

Loss is (thankfully) not something I've always known, but it is a concept I have been slowly growing accustomed to.

I remember going to graveyards as a child to visit an aunt who had died too young. I remember graves packed on top of one another, so tightly wrapped together that you had to climb over some to reach your destination. An experience, understandably uncomfortable, undertaken as a child to pay respects to those I did not have the opportunity to meet in life, and while I understand the belief that taking children to graveyards is important exposure, it provided a negative association with graveyards, an association that has taken me years to unlearn.

Unfortunately, as we grow, the list of those we have lost will never get shorter.

When I was younger, I was thankfully spared from the pain of losing close family members. While I have seen friends have loss as a defining trait of their upbringing, I was not exposed to it at a young age. Acknowledging how late my exposure to grief would come, I used to fear the idea of it, and now, knowing what I do about grief, my fear was justified. It is a terrifying emotion, and I have seen both great progress and tumultuous unravellings occur in others due to it, and while my understanding of it still remains elementary at best, my experiences with it so far, have led me to find a level of serenity within it.

My mum lost her parents a few years back, and we have made it a habit to go over to the graveyard every Sunday morning. The graveyard itself was only recently initiated and originally just contained a few graves that I knew. Now, it has grown considerably and holds the graves of a friend, a close friend's mother, a classmate, granduncles, grandaunts, and even a friend of my mother who helped me get my first job in Toronto, among many others whom I knew during their lives.

Our trips to the graveyard were originally taken out of a sense of duty. My mother lost her parents alone during the COVID years while I was a world away in Toronto, and I wanted to support her as she worked through her grief. Over time, however, our trips to the graveyard have morphed in nature, and no longer do I feel an obligation to go there. I have developed my own routine to mourn the dead with the time spent there. I wander over to graves which hold those who were closest to me in life, and I just - talk.

I speak to a friend's mother - so close she may as well have been family - about the TV shows she's missing out on. I give her updates on my life, I know she'd be proud to see the man I have become. I talk to her about her sons and how they're coping without her, or at least, what I can make of their lives since.

I talk to a friend about what's changed in my life and how I have grown. I know in life he would understand where I was coming from and what those changes mean to me. I tell him how I wish I could have seen his wedding, his first child born, and while we had grown apart over the years before his passing, I wish I could have been around for the life he would have led. I sit at my grandfather's grave, putting my hand over the cement the same way I held his hands through the interactions that made up the last eight years of our relationship, after his stroke, when he found it too hard to speak. So many others I speak to, albeit briefly, to thank them for what they've done for me. So many small acts of kindness are littered across those cement stones. A grandaunt for Eid one year gave me an envelope of cash, which was promptly taken by my mother (for safekeeping). She later slipped me another note and whispered that it was for me and to keep it. I swiftly stuffed it into my pocket and thanked her. I thank her for this memory every time I can.

My mum's friend put in a disproportionate amount of effort to help me get my first real job in Toronto, I remember being reluctant to take the job she had arranged for me, and I remember her words urging me to take it anyways, claiming, "You'll thank me at the end of the year". I never did have the chance to thank her in life, but whenever I have an opportunity, I make sure to let her know, that she was right.

So many other memories, an English teacher who influenced my passion for literature. An uncle who gambled heavily in front of me, and my grandmother's constant favoritism over the other cousins. So many memories rush through my mind as I stroll through the graves of those I once knew. I always leave the graveyard feeling more full than when I entered, and while there will always be a feeling of melancholy, remembrance and loss, the feelings, moments and emotions shared remind me of the best parts of the human experience. What we keep within ourselves after someone is gone, are those not the greatest aspects of our connections? In where we connect with others, can we not see what we ourselves hold dearest?

I know they are gone, and there is a pain that can not be understated when it comes to loss, but there is a calm in speaking to them once again. For a moment, it feels like they are right there with you, and for a moment, it almost feels like they never left, for when they did, you realize clearly that as they left, they left something within you. Something you will perhaps pass on to another, ensuring that even while their memory may fade, their impact never will.

I hope I forever at Eid pass out an envelope with cash in it, just to slip another note into the child's hand without their parents in eyeshot. I hope I forever can provide the same kindness that was provided to me when I was struggling to find a job, putting in as much effort and care as the support I received. I hope I am forever the kind of friend and mentor that would be understanding of the struggles that those nearest me face, I hope I can guide them with the attention and thoughtfulness with which I was guided.

The graveyard is a quiet place, and while you may be talking, it is you alone, with your thoughts and memories, isolated with those you loved, and what they left within you. Spending time focused on what I loved about others, and in turn, what I love within myself, leaves me in serenity, for when silence and connection become one and the same, what could be more peaceful?