Remembering the Dead

Jesuit Cemetery at Mount Saint Michael...

Today is the 13th anniversary of my father's death. His birthday passed only a few days ago. Every year I pause to remember during this week.

A little after 2:00 in the morning, my dogs freaked out and started barking, which they NEVER do. It woke me out of a dead sleep and sent me running down the hall pumping with adrenaline. Even my girls woke up and panicked, asking, "Daddy, what's the matter?" I let the dogs out the back door and they ran straight to the back fence, on the opposite side of where they normally go.

I don't know what made my dogs bark, but it left me with a creepy feeling for more than an hour. Being the anniversary of my father's death, it brought up many unsettled feelings I still carry.

The photograph above represents my thoughts toward the dead. The Jesuit Cemetery at Mount Saint Michael bears a stone with this inscription:

While others find this place
Deserted, it will be
Ever pulsing with life
For me.

For over simple stones
On this wind-caressed height
A host of vibrant men
Stand bright.

Their eyes and words more clear
Than any I now know
To all the crowded town
Below.

I see the living here,
Though spirits may have fled,
And moving numbly there,
The dead.

~John Masterson.