We All Share This Life

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I want to share a moment of my life from yesterday afternoon.  I was out walking through Lakeview Cemetery (per usual) when I noticed an old man with a long white beard and an orange bandana tied around his head puttering by me very slowly on a found-it-in-the-way-back-of-the-garage motorcycle.  He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, making him stand out as a possible ex-Hell's Angel, someone who valued life on the road and nonconformity in a way someone from the 60's or 70's would.  If he'd been listening to music, it would have absolutely been The Grateful Dead or CCR or the Rolling Stones.  But all that I heard as he motored past me was the strain of his motorcycle to stay upright at the slow speed he was traveling.  I watched him putter up the hill by the Haserot Angel and disappear around the bend where he was temporarily erased from my mind.  After all, I see colorful characters in the cemetery all the time -- there was no real reason for him to stand out, not yet at least.

Probably another twenty minutes went by before I turned a corner and spotted the motorcycle parked at the edge of the path.  And that's when I saw him again -- the old man who exuded the heart of a free-spirited adventurer.  He was laying on his back in the grass next to a grave whose marker lay flush with the ground.  His one knee was bent with his foot planted while the other leg crossed it in a casual figure four.  Gently, his knees swayed side to side while I spotted a single red rose pulling focus beside him.  I could see the edges of his elbows splayed, which indicated to me that his hands were folded across his chest, though I couldn't see his torso or face through the obstruction of his legs.  Even though I couldn't hear him, I channeled the murmured conversation he surely was having with the person who was gone but not forgotten, just two beings alight with love on a beautiful Cleveland day.  

I can't explain with any more precision how squarely this hit me in my heart.  How beautiful it was.  How profoundly it proved that death is merely a transition, not an end.  I can't explain how rapidly I felt the certainty of this old man's bond with the person laid to rest in that spot.  I can only say that it proved to me, beyond all possibilities of doubt, that love is real.  It is permanent.  And it transcends.

Photo: from a different afternoon at Lakeview Cemetery.
The tattoos on my feet read "I am here now."


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Virtual Tip Jar: Venmo @sarahwolfstar

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