A Walk Though a Cemetery

 I spent a good portion of the day yesterday taking a way through a cemetery.  I’m not talking just any cemetery, but one that takes you on a walk through time and history, Memphis history.  Also, a part of my husband’s past.  The first part I will talk about but the second I won’t.  No, it wasn’t anything bad, it just brings tears to my eyes even tonight.  I will say that real love, no matter who it might be for, has no end.
Back to the first part.  Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis will take you back over a hundred and fifty years and depending on the part of the cemetery you’re in you open a kind of time capsule for the different eras.  Not only does it take you through these capsules of time but also to different parts of this country and even parts of this world.
It will also take you down different paths that divide the social economic structure of our civilization.  The divide in religion may not be so apparent here, however.  Nor, is it apparent who might have died by the hand of another or who might have been the one who took a life.
There is an audio tour you can take by stopping off at the little cottage visitor’s center on your left just after you cross the bridge leading into the cemetery.  On your right is a lovely little chapel where all kinds of services take place.  It’s really quite lovely.
What’s kind of sad is that as you get further and further from the front of the cemetery the less cared for it looks.  I can say they do keep good records there and if you need to find a grave, they can and are more than willing to help you find it.
Is it a place you should visit?  Yes.  Like I said, you do see a lot of Memphis’s history buried here, and I have to say it is an extremely complicated, often tragic, and wonderfully glorious history to Memphis.  We may be on a lot of worst top ten places now, but we have been in the past and managed to come back.  I have no doubt that this city can do it again.  When it does, I can only hope that Elmwood will be able to carry on the tradition of telling the story of how the Phoenix rose from the ashes once again.
I will have to ask you though not to be as stupid I was yesterday.  I had packed up my expensive camera equipment to do some videos and take some pictures.  I pulled that wonderful equipment out and something very important was missing from the special backpack I carry it in.  No, not the camera, lenses, or filters.  Nope, just the f’n batteries to the damn thing.  I ended up having to use my phone for all the videos and pictures I took.  Now ain’t that a kick in the pants?