Lessons from the Grave

The fear I overcame years ago and the reminder I received when I needed it most

I was always afraid of the “things” that hid in the dark . . .

I can still remember that cold chill creeping up my arms and legs every time the light went out. How dark my room would get every night, and how the loneliness and the quiet sounds of twilight seeped into the room through the in-between spaces — the doorway, the window, through the slats in my closet doors. The buzz of cicadas was turned into the gibberish of imps, the bug smacking against the window became ghostly tapping fingers, and rustling tree branches were disembodied limbs shivering and clawing to get in. To get to me. It would be years before I finally faced these demons and fought to take away their power over me. Little did I know that doing that, going to the one place I was most afraid of, would help me throughout the rest of my life, even long after the ghouls and goblins slunk back to their make-believe netherworld.

Closing my eyes was no escape. It was worse. When I closed my eyes, I was in the midst of an old cemetery or a graveyard, some open field shrouded in mist, strewn with fallen bodies, any place drowning in the aftermath of death. I was a child during the worst of this, and my mind terrified me. As cemeteries and graveyards were more or less the settings for my night terrors, I couldn’t go to one. I could barely look.

My mind reeled and jerked, creating every reason for me to stay away. Night or day, it didn’t matter. I felt unseeing eyes staring me down, imagined hands jumping up from the soil to grab my ankles; I could see the wispy shadows dancing and laughing at my living innocence. I had lost loved ones throughout my life, but they were never buried. They never got graves. I had no reason to walk among the dead, no reason to stay, and only one reason to try to tame my imagination — to stop my sleeping torture.

Eventually, the terrors did calm down to a mild kind of painful experience that I learned to live around. I could watch a spooky movie or two. I could even enjoy a ghost story. And I began pulling apart what was real from what was in my head. When I hit college, it was time. I had to face my ultimate monster if I would ever come into adulthood. Grown-ups weren’t scared of gravestones, and if I was going to study archaeology, I couldn’t be. The perfect opportunity came in the form of a school project through a history class. I had to do a project on something in the area and show how it had changed over decades. I chose gravestones and designed the project to show how they looked different based on the era. This was one of the best choices I ever made. It forced me into the car on that cool November morning and down to one of the oldest cemeteries in the area.

I felt sick driving up. And it only got worse as I parked and turned off the car. My legs went numb, and my stomach churned, making me grateful I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I had just been too tense that morning to do or think about anything but the work ahead of me. It occurred to me I still had time to change the subject of my project. I even considered asking my mother to come with me or call a friend. Instead, I finally marched out the door and hurried into my car before I could change my mind. After I got to the cemetery, I had to sit in the driver’s seat and stare out the windshield, clearing my head and reminding myself there was nothing out there to hurt me. There was grass, stones, an autumn breeze, and probably a few flowers I couldn’t see from where I was. My car was the only one there. I doubted I would see any mourners. The cemetery was a historical landmark; it was easy to assume those left behind to grieve the buried were buried now, too.

I made it out of the car. Took one step. Then another, and then the next, until I was finally walking. I had my phone for pictures, a notebook, and a pencil. I was prepared. My body just didn’t know it. I just kept going, putting one foot in front of the other, attacking every blood-soaked, shrieking thought that tried to enter my mind and plant itself in front of everything else. I had a responsibility, a burden I had placed on myself, and I had to see it through now. And I kept that until I saw something I didn’t expect to see — a pinwheel.

Small, smeared with mud, and its rainbow colors faded with age, but a pinwheel, nonetheless. I let my eyes trail to the scene behind it that slowly unfolded like a terrible memory. An old teddy bear stood a little behind the pinwheel, and next to it lay a bundle of decaying flowers — browning petals scattered across the stone. A stone that surprisingly looked new. I didn’t read the stone immediately. Instead, I looked behind it and to the sides and could see it was one of a small group. Some of the stones looked even fresher and had newer items on them. Some even had little candies, weather-worn dolls, and small rubber toys stuck to the sacred ground. And then I saw the wooden sign off to the side. It was announced that this was the children’s cemetery. And I sank to my knees. Whatever feeling I had gotten back in my body was sapped in that moment as the reality of it sunk in. I took a deep breath and returned my gaze slowly to the stones. A knot of dread was hard and cold in my stomach, but now I had to read the dates.

2001–2009; 2006–2008; 2006–2009; 2007–2010.

None of them had lasted a full decade. My heart sank into the ground right next to their tiny remains. Nothing could enter my mind then but thoughts of those who left all those things on and around those graves: the parents, the siblings, the aunts and uncles, the grandparents. People would return to speak to the stones, leave fresh flowers or new candy, wipe away their tears, and brush off the smooth, hard surfaces. Their fingers would brush gently over names chiseled in stone and rarely spoken. Names that belonged to smiles that faded much too quickly.

“I’m so sorry,” was all I could say. It was all I could do for them. I had struggled with health issues myself since I was young. I had even had times when I was so sick it had me scared, wondering if I was doomed to join those ghosts that scared me so much. I had lost loved ones, and I had very nearly lost myself. And seeing those graves made me wonder how close I had come to being right next to them. Then the breeze picked up, and I heard a creaking sound. I looked back to the first stone I saw. To my surprise, the pinwheel was turning, and a small butterfly landed on the stone. It seemed to settle there momentarily, then flew right towards me. It flew in a small circle, headed back towards the stone, and then flew off towards the sky. I looked up and suddenly realized how beautiful and blue it looked.

I looked back at the stone and saw more writing I had missed near the bottom. I brushed away some of the grass. It read, “Now our little butterfly is free; may you fly.” I looked back at the sky, then back around me, at all the graves. A bittersweet peace began to take the place of all that numbness. My fear couldn’t even touch me. This was not a place to be afraid of. I knew that then. And since that day, I have closed my eyes at night and known peace. Cemeteries and graveyards are places of tranquility, rest, and places to respect those who have passed on. A place to grieve and learn — where I learned I had what it took to stand up to my fears.

Fast forward a few years . . .

An uncertain future had replaced those ghosts and goblins. What haunted me at night now, as a post-graduate, was the uncertainty of my future. Doubts about whether or not I could achieve my dreams only seemed to grow the more I tried to ignore them. This new fear had come with all the power of my old ones. It was raining down on me, drowning me. My doubts and insecurities had become a rip tide, and I was losing my reason inside of it. And then I read an article on Medium, “Lost but Not Lonely in the Cemetery” by Christine Schoenwald.

This was a touching narrative by Ms. Schoenwald about her own time in a cemetery, visiting loved ones, and how that affected her, how it meant something different to her as a child compared to her as an adult. It was very different from my own experience, and mostly, I was reading for the same reason I was doing most things — a distraction. This was another way to take my mind off my own anxieties and fears. And her writing put me at the center of the story. Until she mentioned something in her article

“If I thought the senior facility was sad, this area, with its tilted pinwheels . . .”

And I saw it. That muddy, faded pinwheel. I could feel that tiny rush of air from it spinning and hear it creaking, almost as though it were in front of me again. I could taste that fear I had, all that anxious sweat mixed with the crisp fall air. The article transported me, and in that, I felt my present fear about the future slowly blow away as though it couldn’t stand up to that tiny pinwheel. I couldn’t fear the unknown. Just like that cemetery, these worries and anxieties — the failures I saw myself enduring repeatedly when I closed my eyes — were all in my head. I saw that butterfly soaring towards the sky again. Fearless and free.

Facing my fears and taking steps to move forward and heal has been my theme of the year . . .

I want to thank Ms. Christine Schoenwald sincerely for the article. I read it just when I needed to. It’s easy to forget what I am capable of, and this helped to remind me of how much strength I truly have when I thought I was finally losing the fight. Those graves, including the ones that don’t exist yet for the loved ones that I have lost, are reasons to keep working towards a life I love and to keep believing that I have what it takes to achieve it. Life works in a strange way; it is full of coincidences and chance happenings that help to point us down the right path. Including when we need redirection. And I want to thank ChannSpirations and Coincidences for creating this safe space to talk about them and how much of an impact they have on us. Writing about these moments is the best way (for me personally, at least) to reflect on them and understand what I am supposed to learn from them.

This reminds me, too, of the first story I submitted to C&C. I found inspiration from someone who believed in herself entirely. Fear and anxiety can come in many different forms by several means. While I am at a crossroads in life, learning to heal and move forward, I can see that these are precious reminders that I am not alone in it.

Note from the publication: If you like what you read, please consider following the writer and our publication, and if you would like to share your experiences across the spectrum of synchronicity with us and our readers, please review our submission guidelines and request to be added as a writer.