Before today, I had not visited the Homewood Cemetery this winter. Fear of the cold kept me inside. Upon entering the iron gate today, January 12th, 2013, I was immediately struck by the changes. The weeping willow had turned beige, and its dense branches had thinned. The pond beneath it, always my favorite spot to search for frogs and turtles, had frozen over. I walked to the edge and pressed the ice, causing it to crack.
The snow that had covered the Pittsburgh ground this past week had at last melted. I wondered what the lake would look like beneath a gentle snowfall, and I regretted my habit of remaining indoors during cold days. Yet these initial visions, a direct result of my extended absence, brought to mind a concept of universal significance: impermanence.
All is impermanent, said the Buddha. We suffer in our clinging, for that which we cling inevitably fades away. Why, I began to wonder, do I so often forget this reality? I become obsessed with my daily routine, with the novel I'm working on, desperately striving to complete it. I began to think - is this not simply my reaction against impermanence, my attempt to create something that lasts through time? Was my clinging to this novel as eternal and everlasting not unlike the gravestones I now passed through? For we see stones as among the most permanent of all substances, and thus our utilization of them as memorials offset the sad impermanence of human life. The gravestones, I thought, are meant to be emblematic of each buried person's eternal existence, their triumph over impermanence.
Take, for instance, Mary Herron, 1922-1924. I don't know who Mary was. She lived before my grandparents were born and never saw the age of three. How did she die? Where did she live? How did her early death affect her parents? I will never know. But her stone caught my eye, and thus I know she once existed. The stone is the permanent reminder of her impermanence.
Yet stones, as all other things, will fade away. Carved on the face of one remarkable gravestone was the Virgin Mary with arms outstretched. Her left hand had crumbled, leaving only a stump.
We must remind ourselves of our impermanent nature, lest we succumb to hubris. We are part of this organic process we call life, symbolized by the wind chilling my face and sending fallen leaves tumbling across the path, never to rest again in the spot from which they came. Universal energy carries us forth, and we too shall pass.
Still, amidst these reflections, I want to leave something lasting. I want something to survive my death, my burial, and I want that something to be more than a stone. I want that something to be a source of joy and inspiration. I want it to help people realize that they are understood by someone, even if that someone has been gone for many years. I want something permanent to come of my life. And in this want, I see how very human I am.
Lovely details and reflections, Sean.
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