A Walk in the Cemetery

I rose predawn for the 4 1/2 hour drive to visit an aging priest. He'd been "assigned" to finish out his priestly duties, which now mostly consisted of praying, at his religious order's retirement center. The grounds of this senior care home were nestled in a secluded rural area of Michigan with  beautiful gardens and pathways on the sprawling acreage. It was a breathtakingly beautiful mid-October day. We'd been talking about the approach of Halloween, or maybe it was All Saint's Day, I don't remember. I also don't remember who initiated the idea, was it me? or was it him? Either way, we decided to take a walk to the cemetery. It seemed fitting at the time.

We walked slowly. He was in his late 70s, as I recall, and not in the best of health, as he was slow in recovering from a surgery he'd had.

"Do you know any of these guys?" I asked as we passed the headstones of the male-only cemetery.

He snorted and replied, "Oh, do I!"

He pointed with his cane as we passed the gravestones, his face changing from smile to smirk to surly scowl, calling out the names of his now deceased brothers-in-faith.

If close enough, he would not-so-gently double tap the headstone, mutter the man's name followed by a proclamation, in this instance, "That sissy! Hah! They should have buried him in a dress."

"That thick-headed dimwit! Ha-ha!" each "ha" matching the double tap of his walking cane with the stone, "Aah, but a candidate for sainthood! He was venerable in his own mind and it was a miracle he made it through First Studies."

Tap-tap "This one was as arrogant as- as arrogant as- you know, I can't even think of a fitting analogy! Always late for class! He claimed he had trouble waking on time because he was a deep sleeper. Hah! He was weighed down with his own hubris. It was a wonder he could rise at all."

On it went. The name, the taps, the proclamation. "The drunk! For years we'd blamed the staff for the missing booze. When he died, they found empty bottles tucked all over his room."

There were a couple of more notable ones, but I'm at the point in my life where my aging memory cells fail me. Don't you wish you could record everything in life for posterity? Oh wait, I forgot, now we can. But, I had not a smartphone nor a selfie-stick at the time.

His pace slowed, almost to a standstill. He began to lift his cane, then stopped. His face softened to match his voice, as he gently pronounced the name. There was a pause as he gazed at the headstone, then uttered, "My Lord, but I miss that man." Abruptly, his face took on a curmudgeonly look as he did a 180 degree turn. I stood amazed his aging, still-mending body was capable of such a move. He barked in my direction, "It's cold. Let's go back."