The graveyard

I wrote this on Friday, June 3, 2011. The next morning was when I got a phone call from my little brother that my mom was in the hospital and might not make it...I never came back to it, until today.  It is not finished... but is Part 1 of this intimate journey of healing I am on... It will be continued.

June 3, 2011


I have come to this place, this gloomy place. It looks like a graveyard, marked with crosses and adorned with flowers. My heart hurts. I can feel the death all around me. I smell its fearful fate. I look around and see so many graves imprinted with my name. So many parts of me I have buried. So many times I have been here. But I have lingered here longer than I have ever before.

My footprints are still fresh in the ground at the grave next to the one I am standing over. It is never a labor to come here. The graves are already dug. The grave stones already marked. I am alone, or so it seems. There is no joy here, only regret, pain, fear, suffering...it lingers in the air as a stale stench that burns my nose. I want to run, but am beckoned by this hole calling for me.

I once thought these graves were dug for my life...but in my frequent visitation to this yard, I now know they are dug for the death to those things inside of me that cause destruction to my life. In this death I see life in my soul, in my flesh, in my spirit. The wind shifts and I smell the fresh earth, bringing me back to this place where I stand. I want to get the hell out of here, I want to run, but the quiet pull of freedom keeps me still.

What is it... why am I here again? What is dying? that I have to bury?

I look up and see a man standing on the other side of this chasm...I tremble at the thought that someone else is here. HE is holding a shovel, hands dirty, deep eyes. I turn my gaze to the empty hole in the ground. The range of emotion overtakes me and tears flow down my face and drop into the hole beneath me. One by one they fall until there are no more.

I am mourning.... the loss... of the deepest part of me that has defined my being. I ponder the intensity of the pain, the burden of others. I am lost in this place, trying to find my way. Wondering how I can get through it, when it will be over. In my thoughts I see, in my heart I hear. I must take a breath, I must breathe in with deep conviction of truth. So I come back to the grave to bury the contents of the tears. I open my eyes and see new earth before me. The hole is covered, the cross is at the foot and the fragrance of the flowers fills my nostrils.

I did not fill the hole. I stand and ponder this process. The only thing I came to do was let go of the part of me that did not belong, grieve the loss, rejoice in the freedom this death brings me. The sun is setting and the orange glow reflects of the cold stone that protrudes though the earth. I walk to read the inscription of the stone that is capturing the sunlight. It reads “Untimely death.” The earth trembles beneath my feet and I shutter at the thought. Below those words is my name, written by the hand of a child. There is no cross here to mark this death, only cold stone. It is not shadowed by the cross and adorned with flowers. It is the part of me that I shoved into death and buried in order to survive in this world. The part of me I denied.

My heart feels constricted, panic overtakes my mind. Breathe, breathe, breathe. A deep sigh comes from my lungs and I am able to rest, for a moment. There is a shovel leaning on the tree that shadows this place. My heart embraces this truth, I must unearth her! I must set her free! This part of me that is decaying must be raised from the dead. Frantically I grab the shovel and start to dig. With fervent ambition I dig and did and dig. The deeper I go, the more intense the emotion that consumes me. I am dirty and sweat is dripping from my brow. I am getting tired, I am in pain. I hit something with the shovel. The sound echoes in the hole and surrounds my head. My hands ache from the perpetual motion of digging. I am weak and shaking. Breath comes from my mouth and clears the dirt from the words... I relinquish. I do not want to know what it says. A shadow falls on the words and I cannot make out what it said. In this dark hole of death, as the sun sets, the man who was one before me, stood over me, looking down into the this place. “Open the box,” He spoke almost in a song. I can no longer stand as fatigue saturates my being. I cannot and will not open this box! Why did I do this? Why did I come to this place? My hands tremble from pure exhaustion, yet he beckons again, “Open it…”