Graveyards

Hi, thanks for being here.

Graveyards have got to be one of
the most fascinating kind of gardens
around. I'd like to meander the
world just going from graveyard
to graveyard ...
Call me morbid, or just call me intrigued
with the past.

After landing in Kiev, back in May, 2004,
our six member tour group zoomed off
only to crunch to a stop at a graveyard.
We had a flat tire! And so we spent an
hour wandering through this colorful
graveyard.

Flowers, photos, empty food dishes,
stuffed animals, empty bottles, hungry
dogs (are there any other kind?) and
sleeping drifters made the cemetery
a busy place. What a contrast to the
graves of my two maternal
grandparents.

One of the last places I visited before
coming back home was a weed-infested
ditch in Zhitomir filled with industrial
piping. This was my grandfather's
resting place. The dandelions were
bright and profuse. They're a hardy
plant.

Then there's my grandmother. She died
in the dead of a Siberian winter. What
kind of grave marks her life? Maybe
someday I'll have the opportunity to
search for it.

That's why I write, I guess, to remember
the stories of those who are unremembered.
Call me morbid.

Next time, I promise to write a much brighter
blog entry.
-gabe

Word of the day: morbid
- abnormally susceptible to or characterized by
gloomy or unwholesome feelings
(Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary)