GreenWood Cemetery: Chapter Eight

I couldn’t be more obvious about the fact that I love cemeteries. Whenever I visit a city I’ve never been to I like to get lost on some alley in an old burying ground and I’m always curious to discover how people take care of their deceised. Plus, there are times when an encounter with Death can be quite refreshing. Like a wake up call.

I find it fascinating how different individuals react whenever their footpath seems to have brought them in the vicinity of a cemetery. Some by any means avoid stepping inside up to the point where they’d start pretending that such places aren’t even real, whilst others plan romantic picnics on the grass, next to the tombstone of a famous musician.

Whereas for me, I’ve always wanted to meet a man who, on our first date, (which would coincidentally happen to be on a Valentine’s day) would come equipped with a blanket, a bottle of rose wine and two plastic glasses and take me somewhere, in an old graveyard, to an open air projection of “Meet Joe Black”. Then, we would lose ourselves in philosophical conversations that would last until we’d both die peacefully fifty years after and be buried on the same ground that had accomodated our first date. I mean…is there anything more romantic than that?

I remember how my parents used to take me to every funeral they would get invited to, calling it a “preparation for life”, a way for me to become strong and resilient to heartbreak. Yeah, right, as if having been to the funeral of a third cousin trice removed I’d never met in my life could have made my grandma’s death any easier to bare.

So I ended up resenting my parents for always taking me with them on such occasions, until I finally told them how I actually felt about it. That I rarely knew anything about the deceised and that there was a stench about him it would take weeks to wash off from my hair, clothes and skin, that I didn’t want to have anything to do with all those fake mourners who were dressed in black, pretending to know better than the relatives what needed to be done in order for the deceised to find himself on the way to Heavenly salvation, that I almost never trusted the priest, a fat and greedy individual that would mumble something acting all important and superior and then be on he’s way with pockets full of money and bags of food, maybe even a bottle of red, country wine. Man, how I hated funerals!

And then I grew up and discovered that walking the narrow alleys surrounded by tombs and ivy covered crosses, angel statues and funeral flowers had become a way for me to feel feelings I never thought I had. Especially fear. Fear of anonimity, loss, a wasted life, mediocrity, going mad. And today, above all, cemeteries overwhelm me with pain. A pain so undescribably raw and profound, it cleanses me to the core: the thought of having to bury my parents someday. There is a heaviness to this thought that both inspires me and kills whatever sparkle of innocence I have left.

Cemeteries are places of solitude, introspection and gratitude for the life that is coursing through your veins at this very moment. A celebration of the “right here, right now”. A memento of your own temporariness. A sincere “thank you” to that perfectly assmebled, courageous heart of yours, a true fighter that hasn’t skipped a beat since the day you were born, to your body, a complex and responsive creature, a whole universe of matter, emotion and thought and to all the things it could do if you’d just let it. A mix of fear, dare, serenity, loneliness, futility and confusion that makes you (once again) promise yourself that, from today on, your life will truly have meaning. And not just to you, but to every single one of those who mean something to you, to everyone who’s ever crossed paths with you, to humanity itself.

As they’re coming to life, all tenses of the verb “to be” ask you not to be afraid of anything, because death is the most peaceful state of existence there is and reaching it…is just a matter of time. There has to be some kind of beauty in Death’s mysteriousness, otherwise would the Robin be chirping so joyously? Would cherry blossoms be making all those pink flowers, fed only by the graves’ ground? Would you be there, in front of a WW2 soldier’s memorial gravestone philosophising, drawn to it by the same questions that no one has ever been able to give any scientifically proven answers to?

Probably not.

But Green Wood Cemetery is truly one of the best places in New York to start an honest, uninterrupted conversation with yourself, away from all the noise and tempting distractions. Located at 500-25th Street Brooklyn, it’s been an oasis of quietness and tranquility since 1838, the year it was founded.

“Battle Hill”, the highest point in Brooklyn and the site of an important altercation during the Battle of Long Island on the 27th of August 1776 is on cemetery grounds and rises about 200 ft above sea level. Green Wood is also home to 600.000 graves spread out over 478 acres.

The main gates were designed by Richard Upjohn in Gothic revival style and built in 1861-1865 from New Jersey brownstone, whereas the sculptures depicting biblical scenes from the New Testament over the gateways are the work of sculptor John Mc Moffitt.

A few days, maybe a whole week would not have been enough for us to discover the park’s hidden secrets or hold a moment of silence for every one of those who, heroes in their own way, deserved to be remebered (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Henry Bergh, Albert Anastasia, Edward Wheeler-Hall, William Stewart Halsted, Walter Hunt, Lola Montez, Samuel F.B. Morse, Eli Siegel, Emma Stebbins, Henry Steinway and many more) but we spent some time at Leonard Bernstein’s grave, remembered him and said “thank you for the music”.