This Happened To Me
One Foot in the Grave
Literally
A few years back when I could still get out and move around I used to do a lot of volunteer work. One gig I did work for was with a website called Find a Grave. I had never heard of them until I started working on my family tree again. They’re a free site. It’s all cemeteries from all over the world. If you run into a roadblock it’s one more resource you can use to unlock the mystery.
Once I had happened upon them I decided that I’d sign up as a volunteer photographer. Another one of my great loves — photography. I traipsed around cemeteries and graveyards snapping photos of headstones. I’m in a rural area so there are a lot of headstones (what I call graveyards) in the middle of fields where homesteads once stood. Plus there are old cemeteries in the middle of nowhere. My guess is a town vanished or a once local church did (those are the ones I call cemeteries).
One day I was out in the middle of someone’s empty field. It was fall so the crops were harvested already for the year. It made it a lot easier for me as I could clearly see the stones, etc. I was walking and clicking away. Some stones I’d take more than one shot of in case I didn’t get it right on the first try. At one point I was aiming and shooting when suddenly half of my right leg disappeared. From the knee down. Gone. Where did it go?
One of the graves had a partial collapse.
Yeah, I was knee-deep in someone’s grave.
Thanks to my years of training and work experience in dealing with emergencies I kept my cool. My first thought was I was in the middle of a field practically in the middle of nowhere. Just exactly how was I going to get out? Luckily, and I use that term loosely, I was right next to the headstone. I placed one hand on it, took a deep breath, and then hoisted myself up.
I got my right leg back under me again, so I gathered my things and headed toward the car. Thankfully, I was done so it was all good. The entire time I kept telling myself, “Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. DO NOT LOOK DOWN.”
My fear was that I was going to look down and see someone’s bones stuck to my shoelaces or the hem of my jeans.
Not today, Satan. Not today.