Learning to live in a graveyard

By Michael T. Dolan

I grew up in a cemetery.

Along with the house I grew up in, the cemetery just four doors down is home to the fondest memories of my childhood, adolescence, and angst-ridden early adulthood. In an odd way, it was a second home.

Known to my friends and me simply as "the Cem," Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill was our neighborhood park and teenage hideout.

When I was a young boy, the cemetery was a place to explore life and what lay beyond it. Peering through the stained-glass windows of huge stone mausoleums, straining to read the names and dates, I remember wondering if I would want to be put in one when I died. The thought frightened yet intrigued me, making the existence of ghosts seem feasible.

But the cemetery wasn't all headstones and haunting. Its deserted, hilly roads were a perfect course for high-speed bike rides and newly constructed go-carts. Years later, for the same reasons, it was a great place to learn how to drive. On summer nights, it provided a shortcut to Dairy Queen and a grape Mr. Misty float. And its stone wall was a fine spot for watching fire engines and tanks pass by in the Memorial Day parade.

Just beyond that wall, and directly down the street from my house, lay the cemetery's most prized piece of land. A grassy field, bordered on one side by a line of spruce trees, had remained untouched by the dead, making it an excellent football field. The spruce trees marked one sideline, a cedar marked the other, and giant yews and arborvitaes provided a natural backdrop for the end zones.

For years, that field was our home. Just about every afternoon, we battled it out on the cemetery gridiron: teams divvied up, plays designed on palms, and a Wilson Duke football in tow. There was beauty in the simplicity of the ritual. Amid tackles, touchdowns, and the occasional torn shirt, friendships were formed.

While casually tossing a football back and forth or sitting on the curb with a Big Gulp, we talked. It was the sort of talk that is universal to the young American male - simply stated, minimal. In the silence, though, and in the profanity-laden barbs, truth dwelled. It was the truth of growing up, trying to fit in, and figuring out the opposite sex. Friends who struggle with these things alongside each other in adolescence become lifelong friends. Most drift apart, and a fortunate few never do, but in either case, the friendship is eternal.

We also dealt with adolescence by drinking. This, too, the cemetery witnessed. The trees bordering the football field provided a bunker from which we could spot any patrolling police car long before its occupants saw us. When the headlights came our way, we simply ducked behind the nearest tombstone, bush, or tree. The cops didn't have a chance.

When we reached bar age, I fought to hang on to the cemetery as our watering hole of choice, but without much luck. There was a life to be lived outside the cemetery walls, and we couldn't hide behind them forever.

Today, however, I feel a need to revisit the cemetery. With lives ever connected to the busyness of life, we never take time to reflect on the business of life - that is, to just be. Ironically, the cemetery is one of the few places where we can live in the moment. It's too sacred for checking Facebook or sending the next meeting request, so it puts life (and our phones) in the proper perspective.

Today, with two of those childhood friends having passed on to another cemetery, and my father resting in the ground a few feet from that football field, I long for the Cem.

October's spirits fill the air, calling us to revisit the cemeteries of our lives, so that we may remember what it is like to live.

Yeah, I grew up in a cemetery. I suppose I still am.