cemeteries

I love cemeteries.
It might have to do with the death of my sister, who was two years younger than me.
I was three then and cannot remember my sister at all. I only remember her from photos. She looked totally different from me – my mum used to tell me – black hair like herself.
I always thought, there was only my parents and me when I think back of those times.
What I remember well is that I used to make graves out of clay in the kindergarten.
The nurse was worried, I guess and told my parents about it. I do not know whether they talked to me about it or not. I went on producing graves until I started going to school, I think.
The atmosphere in a cemetary is a special one.
It is quiet, there is a particular scent in the air, a mixture of flowers and holy water.
The light is also a special one.
And the people there, mostly elderly women, with their ewers walking slowly up and down, or weeding and arranging flowers.
Last year I spent two hours in a cemetery on the Isle of Wight. It was not a good idea that my adolescent son was with me. He was impatient and kept asking me what we were doing on such a boring place instead of heading for the bowling arcade.
So when you visit a cemetary you have to be on your own.
You need time to look at the graves, the inscriptions, the figures.
Children’s graves make me a little sad.
And then there are the new graves that have got the fresh flowers and the wooden crosses with the photos on them.
And then you think of all the sadness that comes into your life when someone beloved has died.
I have never been on a cemetery when the sun was not shining.
And I have not been there in winter either. But Salzblog has.
And he has made a wonderful photo.