Speaker for the Dead

In American culture, we don't really like to talk about death. It's just off-limits. Many other aspects from birth to before death are okay, but the end and its beyond go largely unspoken outside of Sunday sermon. It's some wonder, then, that the cemetery was once the place to go for a pleasant day out. Now, it's the edge of town, or the black hole in the middle that you drive by without noticing, pushed out of sight and forgotten.

Not perfectly forgotten, of course. For those who have loved ones interred there, the graphic image of grandpa lying in the ground is hard to push from your mind. In some cultures, people will bring images of life, flowers and other pretty objects to the tombstone to show that life goes on. In others, people bring stones, to rest on the tomb, and as more and more people come the pile of rocks grows taller and taller.

But when nobody you know is actually buried there, how often do you think of a cemetery? There's one at the edge of my neighborhood. I drive past it every time I go home; for 17 years of my life, I passed it nearly every day. I don't know the least about the place, other than the fact that it's there. I don't know who rests there, or anything about their families. I hardly see the tombstones anymore as I drive past.

Some names are all but immortal. Zuppke and Huff, for whom "Zuppke Field" (the name of the field at Memorial Stadium) and Huff Hall are named, are buried along the fifty-yard line of the stadium they filled to watch good football (it's too bad we haven't seen much since I have total confidence in Beckman...). But, realistically, the only reason I even know those names is because they're emblazoned on the masonry; Huff's tenure as football coach was over 100 years ago, and his time as AD ended 80 years ago. There's not a whole lot of people still living who were even alive at the same time as him, let alone would remember him.

But walking around that cemetery still got to me. Having lived here for some time, in the first half of our walk I recognized some names, mostly mere local celebrities. Perhaps the name of a family I knew but didn't much care for. But, it wasn't until I saw the great- or great-great-grandparents of my closest childhood friend that I realized what the cemetery was.

The cemetery stands as more than a repository to store the dead. There is a utility beyond the final placement of persons no longer living. It is a place of stories. Memories tangled up in all sorts of things in the brain come unlocked, walking past the names of people you knew. The physical action of going to the cemetery, on the edge of town or the black hole in the middle, awakens you to the thought that today, something different is going to happen. I didn't know Earle and Bessie Dragoo, and neither did my friend (they died some twenty-five and thirty-five years before he was born). But seeing even the name reminded me of him in a powerful way, and that maybe I ought to try to talk to him again soon. Such is the power of the cemetery, not in holding the remains of the dead, but in unraveling the thoughts of the living.