Wishes in the Cemetery

By: Ava Harth

I have never enjoyed cemeteries or graves because I thought they represented being forgotten and left alone by the world. It didn’t help that in some films I watched, cemeteries were depicted as creepy horror sites. Whenever I saw graves, I would always refrain from looking at them for too long. This was mostly out of the fear that if I stared at them for too long ghosts would come to haunt me. As I have traveled and grown and gotten to see the world around me, my view on these sites has started to change.

On our recent trip to Boston, much to my dismay we did end up visiting one cemetery in Salem, Howard Street Cemetery, due to its historical significance in the witch trials. This cemetery happened to be the place where a man by the name of Giles Corey was buried. He was famous for being crushed under tons of rocks after refusing to go on trial for witchcraft. Even though he is somewhat known, we were not able to find his grave as it was unmarked. As I walked through the cemetery, I felt quite bored and it didn’t help that I was also not in the best of moods. Begrudgingly, I walked through the rows of graves that aged with time until I finally decided to settle by a grave that was under a sizable tree. The tree had large branches that were covered in all sorts of chartreuse leaves. The leaves would cascade ever so often as it was the fall season. At first glance I wasn’t that interested in the grave or the tree as I just wanted a place to sit down so I wouldn’t have to keep walking. I hate walking. Eventually I decided to take a look at the grave. Upon observing it, I found out a few things about it. The first thing I noticed was that the person buried here was named Eliza, but the headstone addressed her as Miss Eliza. This led me to wonder whether or not she was a lady of status because only some people got titles. The second thing I noticed was that she was from the 1800s. The third and final thing I noticed was that on her grave, although it hadn’t been visited in some time, there were messages of loving words from her parents which seemed to be blessing her on the journey out of the world.

Although this may seem insignificant, passing by the words made me think she must have been very loved if she received all those wishes, and even if she wasn’t visited as often, there were always words of blessing laid upon her grave. This made me happy because I thought that if people can come and take time to leave messages for a person they cared about, then maybe cemeteries weren’t just these decrepit places where people lay, maybe they were places where all the wishes of the living were passed on to their loved ones who have departed. It is said that love can transcend all bounds, so it would make sense if the departed could feel and carry the love they have received from the living for all eternity.