I am the youngest in a long line of dead people, essentially. I am always going to wakes and burials, and it’s quite a wonder that I haven’t become numb to it all, like children who become desensitized to violence after playing too much Grand Theft Auto. Not quite the same idea, I know, but there is something to the similarity of the original shock that both death and acts of brutality hold for children—the motives behind each are disjointed and largely mysterious until we get older.
I spent my first twenty years—my life so far—in cemeteries, near cemeteries, or thinking about cemeteries. There is a Jewish cemetery right behind my house, and every time I drive past it, I think about how I used to pester my father about why their grave markers were so close together. How was it possible? I’ll never forget when I finally got a response, the kind of shock it caused my innocent self. “They get buried standing up, Tail.” I had seen caskets lowered into the ground numerous times already, I had seen that they enter their eternal resting place lying down—never had I considered the other way. Somewhat more disheartening was when I realized my father had made up that explanation. Good one, Dad.
***
When I was a child, I used to visit my grandfather’s grave frequently. He has this great location in All Faith’s Cemetery in Queens, one I consider truly prime. Queens is known for being a borough of cemeteries, but his really sets the bar high. Part of it is its location relative to important local establishments. But it’s also the sounds one hears or the sights one sees while sitting there on a lonely afternoon.
All Faith’s is by far the most curious cemetery I know. A dreary German restaurant, Neiderstein’s, used to sit outside the center front gate of the cemetery, and we would all go there after a funeral. It was the kind of place I could eat in, and probably did eat in, at least once a year for most of my life, and yet I never remember what it really looked like inside. The décor, from what little I can recall, was dark and stale, with wooden floors that looked dank with the sweat of being built over the former marshlands that were Queens. The owners sold it a couple of years ago to the chain restaurant Arby’s, which installed shiny, sterile white–tile floors. Needless to say, we do not do lunch there after a burial anymore. Something about chicken fingers and fries does not ring respect for the dead. Maybe that is prejudicial, I don’t really know. But it seems to be the sentiment of most of my living relatives. I personally enjoy their lemonade.
A Catholic high school lies at the far end of the cemetery. It is at the end of a big dip, and apparently the whole thing sinks two inches every year, which by association and proximity must mean that the cemetery is sinking too. Never before has the idea of Queens as former swamp land seemed more relevant than now, as I can almost see the clip they might show on the five o’clock news—caskets, the hearty cement ones that morticians convince people to buy because they think it will keep their dead safer for longer, flipping over, opening, sliding down into the abyss of receding dirt.
***
There are some people that go a little overboard in their stones and leave indelible landmarks in a sea of otherwise identical graves. In All Faith’s, there is this one particular stone that always stops me in my tracks. It comes at a fork in the road, a sort of crossroads of sepulchers. It consists of this emphatically phallic, tall monstrosity, like the Washington Monument. It has these crazy angel statues peering out on all sides, ushering people in, perhaps attempting to lure them forward. It is quite the spectacle, to say the least.
Taking a left there, attempting to avert my eyes from the angels, I can follow that road almost directly to my grandfather. I am suddenly hyper–conscious of the fact that I just said my “grandfather,” considering that this stone, this plot, those weird flowers my aunt stubbornly places on his grave —none of them really “are” my grandfather at all. If anything, he would want real plants or nothing, and he would probably be mad that he is buried next to his painfully frugal older sister and her miserly husband. That is how I know he is not there—eternal peace, for Vito Specchio, could never be had in such a place.
Flanked by his sister and his brother–inlaw, and backed by his in–laws’ stone, my grandfather has a great set up. Besides his distaste for his cheap older sister, he has a breathtaking view. Clear blue skies stretched across the Queens landscape are not quite what most people enjoy when they look out of their windows at home (I for one can only catch sight of the Jewish cemetery when I look out of mine. To think, I am slightly jealous of my dead grandfather’s view). But it’s more than that—his stone is stately, yet tasteful. No need for the grandiose; it is a simply square slab of muted pink marble, with an open book etched into its top. No pictures, no biblical quotations, just his name and the years of his life. It looks almost bare in comparison to the stones surrounding his, and it is for this reason that when I look at it, against the azure skies, I cannot help but rejoice in the quiet peace of the place. It is this peace that allows me to sit there for a while, talking with his grave as if it is in some way a portal for communication with him. I tell him about my life, about the parts of my existence that I know he would love. And then the train that runs along the Cooper Avenue side of the cemetery always interrupts me. This eruption of sound is welcome, even apropos, considering my grandfather had been a conductor on the railroad. He loved the trains, and when I see this, it is usually my cue to head to my other grave pit stops.
***
When I leave his resting place, I always go see my aunt’s old neighbor John. His wife put this peculiar little white picket fence around his grave. I just stand there, look, and suddenly leave, feeling like I have not quite sufficiently paid my respects. There is something about standing in front of someone’s grave that reminds us of the distance we have with people in life. Postmortem is generally not the most opportune time to feign conversation with strangers.
Stepping away from them, I head to Louis Petevelo’s stone. His is heart shaped, with a rose carved into its side. When I stand here, I think of him and his wife, and how they were such good friends of my grandparents. Sometimes, I’ll toss his most used Italian phrase out into our conversation, “Sta zitta!” which he was always saying to his wife Valda. It means shut up. Luckily, there is no more silent a time than death.
Louis’ grave lies in a sea of newer plots, and a lot of the people near him are considerably young. One girl, whose picture is emblazoned on her monument, was only in her early twenties when she died. From my grandfather’s plot, I can see this spot, and sometimes when I come, there is a man with a boom box who comes and plays his music. He then dances above the grave. I let my mind wander, thinking up his story. Maybe he used to make up silly dances to make her laugh, or maybe she loved to dance but he was too shy to get onto the floor at parties. He is making up for lost time now.
There is this other woman that finds her way to a mausoleum near the gate I usually leave through. She wears all black, like a little Italian widow, and kneels on a pillow on the cool marble floor, protecting her knees from both the hardness, the chill, the cries. She cries, I imagine, for the husband she fought with every day for the sixty years they were married. She cries for him, knowing that she never had a better friend. Or maybe, she just needs to cry.
***
The stories of strangers and their visits that I like to imagine came to full fruition when I noticed something at the cemetery one day. Stones, feathers, and offerings of fruit can be found on some of the larger gravestones. After I saw these tokens, I decided that I had to leave a stone on every grave I visited before I left. In retrospect, it makes sense to me.
Part of the calm I feel in All Faith’s arises from the sense that if I leave an artifact behind, not a soul will dare move it. My chosen stone then, stands as a constant reminder of both remembrance and the persistence of life, even in death. It is the mark I choose to leave behind as the signal of the inter–generational conversation I like to believe I am always in the middle of, with everyone around me, dead or alive.
Like those rocks, the mourners I encounter here appear stagnate. They stand vigil at the graves, in their own ways, and though they seem unchanging, every time a wind comes, they are slightly eroded like the rocks, shaped by their inter–generational encounter.
That, to me, is the serenity to be found in All Faith’s, or in any cemetery for that matter: the ongoing conversation of life.
Above: Photo by Adam Wozniak
TAYLOR NAPOLITANO hails from Maspeh, Queens. A Columbia College sophomore majoring in Italian Literature and Creative Editor for The Current, she can be reached at tln2102@columbia.edu