Claiming My Voice: From the darkness, the light emerges.

I think I’ve been walking cemeteries now, for about 20 years. If memory serves, I started doing this because I didn’t know what to do with the energy of grieving my mother’s death.

Historically I have walked up and down the rows and said the names of strangers out loud. I don’t know if anyone else is remembering them, but it feels like an honor to say their name out loud, even if I never knew them. Recently I have got to be at the gravesite of people I hold dear in my heart. There’s something different to the grieving: it’s no more intense… Just different.

I applied to be a funeral Director ones. I thought helping people usher their loved ones to the next round would be beautiful. Unfortunately, because I do not fear death, I lack the sympathy those people need to help them with a recently lost a loved one.

Today is a beautiful day to be at the cemetery. The skies have been waffling between sunny and gray and chilly. Wind has picked up now and then. I am not afraid of death: yours or mine. I do not like the sadness but there’s something beautiful in it.