Digging Out

"Fresh grave in the pale winter sun" by Hilary J England
8" x 11" oil on canvas panel, 2014

Sometimes when I sit in my office, I get the maddening whiff of flowers, and it reminds me of a funeral home.  I don't know why, and it's all year long, and ONLY in this one particular room.  Strange.

The cemetery is not really a sad place though, and over the years, we unfortunately have had a pretty decent number of family and friends now become residents there.  We all die, but the sad thing is, for most of us, no one remembers beyond life.  Ever go sit in a cemetery?  Especially in Winter?  Not exactly a bustling place or beehive of activity.  I sat there for hours, and there was not one solitary visitor.  I walked the graveyard like a ghost, looking at the various headstones, both recent and old, and wondered how some of the younger people met their demise.  One particularly poignant plot of earth captivated my attention: a young woman of 18.  No marker.  Just a faded piece of paper, crumbled and ragged from the elements, waiving feebly in the wind, with just her name, date of birth, date of death.  I felt intense pity for her.  Was that all she was worth?

Winter is sometimes a hard season.  We get pent up and on each others nerves as the cold, bad weather, and illness keeps us indoors.  I don't know why I wound up at Skyview.  I had a coffee and was just happy to be out of the house, even though I am wracked with some kind of lung infection, I felt I needed the clean air.  And there was this place...