Graveyard or Banquet Hall

Most have an innate aversion to graveyards.  Me too. That’s why when my older brother, Jodie, asked me to go to see the grave markers in Alamo, Tennessee, I was hesitant at first. But on reflection, I could see the wisdom of going there.

I am 80.  Jodie is 86. What awaits us?

After all, it is better, says the proverb, to go to the house of mourning than to the banquet hall. Why? It is good for the soul to contemplate our future. We all die. For the same reason, Adamic (from Adam) sin. And we all aspire for a common afterlife. Commonality binds us together in a customary struggle. Adam killed us all. Who will save us?

I had foreboding as we made our way down the darkening  path by car to the inner sanctum.  The manicured graveyard had fresh flowers that lined the graves.  We got to a point, got out and walked, taking pictures as we went.

I saw my grandfather’s name, Ike Reams and his wife Callie Reams on a shared tombstone. Their birth dates and dates of death were chiseled in granite. How sobering. Real people, my ancestors.  They lived and died here in this small town.

Next I saw the name of Ike’s  father: Isom Reams and his wife Fannie Reams. Imagine going back three generations within a few steps.

It would seem that my ancestors were landowners, certainly not squatters. What else would account for three generations living in the same town, working the same land and having granite, no less, tombstones.

There were other names that must be made to fit into the puzzling family tree, an assorted tapestry. Hut Reams, Nick Reams, Y. Z. Reams, Isaac Reams, JB Reams, Dora Reams Singleton, Odis Orlanders Reams, Nick Reams and Susie Reams.

This is not an exhaustive family tree.  My focus is to explore my feelings on this experience of revisiting the Reams family graveyard.  I have been here before.  But this time is different.

Imagine all the previous generations who have died. With 100% certainty, they all died, just as we will too. Imagine in this tiny parcel that contains blood relatives who lived during overlapping periods spanning 202 years.

There have been very many changes during the intervening decades. But many common human experiences have remained the same. We fall in love, marry and have children.  We work, grow old and die.

Nowhere on the grave markers do we see the joys of wedding days, childbirths, anniversaries, milestones reached, paydays celebrated, gifts presented and received, jubilation and  love ecstasies, harvest-times, planting seasons, cool sips of water, and sound sleep, deep sleep.

Tombstones cannot speak. Or so we say.  But they do attest to a stark reality: my folks, flesh and blood, lived and died here.

They passed down to me the blood that now courses through my veins, the genes that renders me able to excel in sports, to learn certain subjects more readily than others, a propensity for communication and an aversion for advanced math, a capacity to love joyously and to give happily, and to leave behind a lasting marker for those who follow me.

Denial is common to survivors.  Our inborn and stubborn refusal to accept the finality of death is universal. Could this tell us something about our future? Could it be that the dead will surely live again?

Could it be that all is not lost in a transient stint of life that all too quickly vanishes away? Imagine sitting around a table of good food, talking about what was with  people from the distant past,  people the most like us genetically.

Like us, they have virtues and struggles, announcements and secrets.  We are all tormented in one way or another. This does not make us heroes or villains. Consider the bigger picture. How many humans have ever lived and died?

Estimates range from 108 billion to 117 billion, according to mathematicians.

How could so much carnage be in vain? Look at all it takes to sustain and enjoy life. This planet is not in isolation. Light beams nourish us after traveling from the far reaches of space. Supernovas explode and furnish elements that makeup our bodies.  How could the sheer magnitude of planning and effort and relapse of aeons be for nothing? How illogical!

In the end, we are all victims of a common enemy: Death. How we cherish the hope that we will also be victors of a common Benefactor.