The Ghosts of Tenth

I was in the cemetery. It was a chilly day, as it typically is in Fairbanks before the
snow melts. I believe it was May – the month I graduated high school. I was seventeen, homeless, and while I had the ability to do my classes online if I chose, my grades were good enough that it was impossible for me to fail my classes. So I didn’t do them. Instead, I spent my days walking through downtown Fairbanks, enjoying being alive for once.

So, I suppose most thought I was quite odd for choosing a place of death as my favorite place to read. Many who linger in cemeteries argue that they are peaceful, quiet, clean, or have an air to them – while this is true, this cemetery was not, and had not. Few enter the cemetery on tenth avenue except the homeless, and no one had been buried there for at least fifty or so years. A period of time long enough where no grieving family members would ever be seen leaning over the decrepit graves, and no friends would leave flowers, and none would bother picking up the empty blue vodka bottles outside the gate. Except me I suppose – I always made a point of leaving the cemetery better after every visit. While I visited often, I only brought one or two books to read there; I brought my beloved copy of pride and prejudice, or a paper back I cannot remember the title of.

It was borrowed from my best friend’s boyfriend, and was a lovely story about monsters, handsome men, and the harsh realities best demonstrated by fiction. They were the only two I owned at the time. On this day, I had brought the paper back. As I did often, I was sat on the bench along the path into the cemetery, deep enough that I would be unlikely to attract spectators, and far enough that the sound of the highway was less distracting. You see, the cemetery on tenth was, and is, an old relic buried into the heart of modernity. It was one bike path away from a busy road, one iron picket fence from a run down residential area, and just down the street from the homeless shelter and hospital.

I had been unfortunately followed by an old man who lived in that area once too many times to feel comfortable at the entrance anymore – or to feel comfortable leaving the shelter without a knife in my pocket (also borrowed from the aforementioned boyfriend). The wind blew sharply now and again, but I barely noticed. The hero was slaying giant spiders, and the sun was on my face. In my ears I had two cheap, pink earbuds playing faint classical music – faint enough that no one would be able to sneak up on me thinking I couldn’t hear them. In the distance I heard a car horn, and in my nose was the rich, deep smells of old leather and dirt. The first scent from the over sized vintage jacket I wore, which was at the time and remains to this day my favorite garment, and the dirt from the patches creeping up through the melting slush.

I smiled, as I realized I was actually, genuinely happy. Alone, a sense of danger on the breeze, but an assured confidence in my chest that no matter what happened I had at least lived. I was not your average homeless teenager – I was a runaway, head strong, fiery, and determined to make it through life on my own terms (it was, and is, not nearly as romantic as it sounds). Hence, the cemetery. It reminded me that I wanted to live my life with no regrets, because it would end – all things end. Like the chapter I was reading – memento mori, and in the same breath, memento vivere.

With a sigh, I stretched out my legs, thinking on my worn out shoes from Walmart, and decided that it was time to explore. Standing with a groan, I looked to my left and saw tall pillar gravestones and crosses, and to my right, the short, shattered glass ones belonging to long dead generals. I wandered the generals first. It was my goal with every grave to see if I could find the name of the deceased, some small indicator of their story and demise. No one else cared, and it brought me a sense of accomplishment to think that if ghosts were real, then at least they knew someone still tried to remember them. Generals on generals, soldiers on soldiers, cracked glass plaques all, few still legible. These were the graves that made me truly sad.

No massive monuments these, no, these were nothing but small tributes to great and honorable men – and yet poor design made their earthly legacies unrecognizable. After the soldiers was what I considered the “assorted” section. Miners, immigrants, lovers, an unknown Swedish man who died on Alaskan soil, a tradesmen buried with his wife, family plots that made my heart ache, humorous inscriptions that made me chuckle – all shapes and styles. I would jokingly make comments and talk to the headstones that jumped out at me, and cheerfully greeted each possible specter with respect and acknowledgment. After making my rounds through the right side of the cemetery and dodging the mud, I moved on to the left.

More assorted gravestones welcomed me in – my absolute favorites being the seemingly immortal slabs of concrete, flat and austere, and I always thought a wonderful place to picnic. Or perhaps, my favorites were the engraved marble pillars, detailed and elegant with flowers. However, I was also partial to the combination of the two – with the engraved, poetic slabs under the towering trees securing their place in my heart. While pondering which style I would detail in my will, I stumbled into quite an odd circle of headstones.

All were crosses, all in a sort of spiral, with one lone headstone set apart but obviously included. Curious, I thought. Reading the inscriptions, I realized this was the religious section. Pastors, reverends, and if I remember correctly, maybe even a cardinal. I have never been the religious type, and so it could've been some title seemingly as grand to the uneducated. But, who here was this lonely grave, with doves carved into the surface?

The grave was another slab with a short headstone included, but seemed to be of a design I hadn’t seen before – and a touch worn away. After struggling for a moment, I realized that this was the grave of a newborn baby. No name, only listed as “the ----- baby”, with a death within a year of birth. I searched around for the family that would undoubtedly be buried by the child’s side, but found nothing. Nothing except the spiral of spiritual enlightenment, as I dubbed it from then on out. What a tragic fate, if ghosts truly existed, for a baby to be left in the hands of the dead church, and not a mother or father nearby, or even a name. In that moment I felt sure that this child needed company outside of the pastors, and must be living a very lonely eternity.

As such, I sat down on top of the slab, and read there for many hours. I was uncomfortable being so close to the picket fence, and the people who lived on the other side, but was determined to bring a speck of company to the now long, long faded soul of the newborn. Sometimes, I would speak out loud to the baby, greeting it and talking to it about my day. I garnered many stares from outside the picket fence this way – I cared not at all. For many days after this, I spent my hours with the ghost of this baby, and enjoyed every moment of it. Here I was, finally free to live life as I chose – and no one could understand why I chose to spend it thinking on death, and reminiscing on a long gone newborn from days past.

Who are we if we are not remembered? What is life except a brief foray into other peoples minds, and what are we when that memory fades? This was my philosophical counter – but, since I lived in a youth homeless shelter with many fifteen year old children, this was typically received with the odd look and shrug. The answer, after much pondering, is that we are nothing – and everything. The world is built on the dust of bodies, and the blood of the dead, and even after we are gone we have left parts of ourselves behind; but, once our memory fades we become nothing more then that foundation. Nothing more then that contribution, and nothing less. Is this comforting?

To some, yes, to others it is the inevitable doom that haunts them, but facts do not change on the whims of the living, and I am sure the dead laugh at us for trying. At the time, I was content to have contributed at least a few more moments of memories to the spirits that may have been lingering, and to have cleaned up the vodka bottles. Now, I walk by the hospital on tenth, where I am about to deliver my first child, and think on the cemetery just down the street, where a newborn with no name is buried.

I hope to bring my son there, and to catch up with my old, rotting friends, and read more books to them. I hope to contribute to this world more memories, more life, and the life of a child that will also respect those who came before him – and who just maybe will bury me beneath a tree someday, where those who read my name will think on my story too. Will I have a great marble pillar, or a long-lasting concrete slab? That, sadly, I have not decided on yet.