Your Days Are Numbered

It wasn't much of a park.

A mowed field. Skeletal remains of a baseball diamond. A path peeking warily through trees on the far end with no clear access point inviting, "Come stroll with me" to visitors.

It was a weird place for a park.

Streets carrying traffic far exceeding their original capacity bordered three sides. A single small sign announced "No Golf" to drivers pulling into the solitary parking spaces at the bottom of the hill. It wasn't the neighbors' saltbox houses' windows prompting the sign. It was the headstones.

A cemetery comprised the park's other border. Meandering throughout this fourth boundary was a narrow paved road. A silver sedan pulled slowly into the grounds, inching to a stop. A tall, slender, white-haired lady stepped out and moved unhurriedly yet resolutely among the markers. Arriving at her destination, she bowed, placing the artificial bouquet into the tombstone's side holder, straightened, and waited. A moment later, she bent and arranged the flowers a bit more. She straightened. She waited. Stooping a third time, she smoothed the petals until they were just right. She straightened. She waited.

After time claimed a few more minutes, the stranger turned and strode neither leisurely nor rapidly back to the road. A few more moments moved into the past as the car with its lone occupant disappeared into the mass of autos zipping along the busy street comprising one of the park's boundaries.

I strode up the hill, curious to see the site where the snow-white-headed lady had visited. The headstone showed a woman's name and one date on the left side. A man's name with two dates were chiseled on the right. I guessed -- but couldn't know for certain -- it was her name accompanying the solitary date and her deceased husband's name alongside the two dates.

How many times had she made this journey in the last 13 years? What had changed over time? Had she once stroked his hair the way she'd caressed the petals? Had she been as careful to arrange his tie as she'd been with the bouquet? Had she stopped and listened to his jokes, complaints, and day's news the way she'd stood and listened to the silence?

I paused but didn't linger. It felt intrusive. As if eavesdropping on a very private conversation.

Along the lane several mounds of dirt, brick red from recent rains, bore witness to fresh grief. Thick grass covered many areas while other rectangular spots evidenced green shoots only a few years old. I wondered if the family left behind in those still mostly bare spots were starting to feel rooted.

I slowed coming upon one site with a dilapidated half sheet of plywood held in place with a few sections of lumber. Darkness -- not of grass or dirt but emptiness -- squinted from underneath one corner. Was there an empty grave underneath, awaiting a coming occupant? Curiosity beckoned me to peer underneath. Respect, however, lassoed the mischievous imp, and I strolled on, leaving the darkness a mystery.

Plain black vertical letters -- "I-m-m-a-n-u-e-l" adorned the simple white posts along the narrow asphalt way. Short limestone memorials squatted close to the ground while neighboring granite statutes stretched towards the blue peeking through white clouds. Birthdates and death dates had been entirely washed away by decades of sky-tears falling onto soft-stone markers. This information now retained only in the memories of progeny or records of proprietors. Etched deeply into impervious rock were names, dates, sayings, and even an occasional image providing strangers passing by the tiniest of glimpses into a life now gone.

But were these lives over? Or only overhauled?

Perhaps the park's location was the perfect spot. After all, parks are places of rest-oration. Areas to refresh, restore, and renew. To breathe deeply. Laugh. Chatter. Ponder. Play.

Remember.

One day all our struggles, cares, hopes, conversations, giggles, secrets, projects, accomplishments, meals, fears, failures, errands, activities, chores, and naps will be summarized in two dates and a name.

It seems like a weird way to mark a life.

But a summary isn't an ending. It's an invitation.

For those who celebrate Easter -- not as a day but as a declaration -- a park is a cemetery's perfect neighbor. It's a reminder one day Resurrection will come, and those who love Life will live again. May we follow the Psalmist's advice, "Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom."