Yesterday was definitely a first... I broke into a cemetery. Yes. Really. Autumn wanted to visit her father's grave, so she bought a flower and we headed that way. The cemetery is on the road out of town that leads up the mountain to the Oki, for those of you who have been here (and been to the Oki).
In the US, when you think of a cemetery, it's normally a fairly pretty place with lots of nice green, immaculately manicured lawns, properly cleared walkways and paths, an occasional bench, etc. Not so here. Way not so. Basically, it was a field with a fence/rock wall around it. Three quarters of it was fence, but in the front, it had a half-height brick wall and then barb-wire up to about the 10 foot point. Immaculately manicured lawn? Think again. There was no lawn. There was some grass, but it was more like what we would call native grass, the kind good for grazing cattle. Paths? What paths?
As we pulled up to the cemetery, it was pretty obvious to see that there is construction going on pretty much all around the area. And, of course, there were some cows grazing IN the cemetery. We got out of the truck and walked up to the gate. It was barb-wired shut. I guess, in the past they had the gate closed, but you could still get in by unlatching the barb-wire. Not yesterday. They had lots of barb-wire securing the gate, and large stones in place so that the gate won't open. Hmmm, that's interesting. We walked about 25 yards away from the gate, to a place where the brick wall was about waist high, and there was about a 2 foot gap between the brick and the barb-wire. Well, we pulled up on the barb-wire enough so that each of us could climb between the wall and the wire, being careful to clear the barb-wire before standing up.
There aren't that many people buried in this particular cemetery because it's private and costs more than the public cemetery. Although it's fairly a fairly large property, I'd estimate the number of graves at maybe 30. I did notice that a few of the other graves had somewhat fresh flowers on them, as well. And there was even evidence that someone had been buried within the last few months. So, we know that people are getting in somehow.
Then, of course, there are the cows. We had to dodge large piles of cow plop while walking.
Autumn put the flower on her dad's site, and we walked around looking at some of the other markers. Then, we saw a young kid start to make his way over to where we had been. We knew that he was zeroing in on the fresh flower. Perhaps he thought it might make a good snack for the cows. Sandi talked to the little guy, letting him know that Autumn had put a flower on her father's grave, and taking it would be wrong. As we walked back toward the road, we pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that the kid would probably take the flower anyway.
We dodged more cow plop on the way back to the car.
We climbed back over the fence again, being careful to avoid the barb-wire. Since there is obvious construction in the area, we wondered what they're going to do about the cemetery. Are they going to leave it as is? Are they going to try to relocate the people buried there? I mean, it seems odd to have buildings or homes going up, and they have a cemetery as their front yard. I guess time will tell.
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