I remember how much I loved to play hide and go seek when I was little. Especially
in the graveyard at Barren Run Baptist Church.
I'm not sure how or why we were able to get away from sitting through the Sunday
evening services, but there were countless times when five or six of us found
ourselves thankfully missing all the holy rolling. I can vividly remember the
setting sun and the lightning bugs making their way up the sloping hill from Barren
Run Creek as the church's shadow crept across the tombstones of long-dead relatives.
All our kin were buried there, so it wasn't actually sacrilegious, at least
that's the way I looked at it then (and now). It was just good ole spooky fun,
especially hiding behind your great-great-great-grandmother or sometimes tumbling
across a long-dead-distant cousin who'd died as a child. See, if you died young,
you didn't get a big stone that stood up, you got a much smaller rock, set flush
to the ground, and they were damn easy to trip over. Those stones you avoided
unless you wanted a busted knee or lip.
My grandparents and their parents are way up on the hill and it gets pitch black
up there once night sets in. The woods crept real close to their graves but you
never, EVER went there. Playing in the graveyard was no big deal, but there was
no way you'd find me trekking off into the woods where copperheads, Big Foot and
scary white trash lived.
I bring this up because today's biking adventure included a visit to a mausoleum
that's only a mile or so from my house and in all my time here in St. Louis,
I'd never noticed it - until last week. I went and voted in the mayoral and
school board elections and then rode to the Hillcrest Abbey. There are four
buildings at Hillcrest and they are set up on a hill that affords quite a view
of the state mental hospital a few blocks away. All that
Girl, Interrupted
stuff is interesting, but I've read enough Sylvia Plath and I'll keep my adventures
to the dead, thank you. I'm pretty convinced I'll walk out of a mausoleum alive
-- but I'm not so sure what a visit to an asylum would do to me.
There's a modern looking chapel, an outdoor mausoleum, the crematory and the
columbarium. I walked around the crematory and all I could do is think of Pope
John Paul II - white smoke, ya know? There was no smoke and I'm not even sure
if the crematory is still functioning. I will admit that I didn't try to open
any doors of the building, especially since I was by myself. Once again, that
whole leaving-it-the-same-way-that-you-entered-it scenario guided my judgment.
The columbarium, on the other hand fascinated me. I parked my bike and walked
in through an old screen door and a pair of large, solid dark wooden doors.
It was very quiet. And as I entered the columbarium, I instinctively took off
my bike helmet...yeah, yeah...I'd play in a graveyard, but I won't wear a hat
indoors. My mother would be
so proud before she slapped me across my
helmetless head. In front of me was a large table with artificial flowers and
some Christmas arrangements that should have been thrown out months ago. Some
of the fake shit was fabulous and I couldn't help thinking what a marvelous brooch
this or that would make. But I curbed my kleptomania....
Jesus, Rob...you're
in a crypt...act right! Behind the table is a downward winding staircase
and rows of vaults with names engraved on them. Some of the vaults are extra fancy
and have flower holders, most of which are empty.
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There's several different setups in the columbarium. There's one room that
features a huge glass case and there are tiny boxes and sometimes photographs
in each receptacle. Some of the depositories are fancier than others and I looked
for a Thurman, but couldn't find one. The names seemed German, Polish....and
there were some Nga's, Njung's......quite the mix, I must say. It was very clean,
but a little run down. That room reminded me of an abbey in Indiana that I visited
with an ex-boyfriend. A nun gave us a tour, showcasing the reliquaries made
from the hair of the dead sisters. The hair was woven and braided, made into
fantastic, ornate shapes and sealed inside boxes with their names on little
plaques. Before we left, the nun gave us some fruit, some water and told us
that God was always with us. She knew we were fags and said that, too....it
was nice.
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Things weren't so nice as it started to get dark today, though. The creepiest
moment was pushing open the men's room door --located on the outside of the columbarium.
It was all
Blair Witch meets Leatherface..meets it
rubs the lotion
on its skin........but fuck....I just had to do it. Me and public restrooms
- but that's another post. And then the memory on my camera ran out and I got
the hell out of there as fast as I could.
I rode my bike home, racing against the sunset, thinking about how I used to
play among the dead as a little kid, thinking it was some sort of spooky treat.
But today I had a very different experience looking at so many people long-gone
and seemingly unremembered. It made me sad seeing so many empty vases (if that's
what they're called). That, I think is the saddest thing about dying -- the
irrelevancy that takes us all, unless you're a Grade-A Superstar or Asshole.
It hurt my heart seeing so many once-beloved people left unremembered -- and
it was just Easter. I wondered, do Jews visit their dead relatives at Passover?
That's coming up. And Mother's Day.
I think I might make it my duty to visit these folks from time to time and
tell them about what's going on in the world that has long forgotten them. We
cannot fight death, but there's no excuse for irrelevancy.
