thedarksiren2 | Part dos...twelve hours later

One couldn't help but notice all the green and the trees while driving down the hill in Riverside Cemetary. Trees everywhere, growing strong, shading the world within. We rounded a curve and beheld the wonder that was Babyland.

Chills before I even got out of the car. I took off my shoes, stepped out of Fairuza wth my camera in hand, and walked toward a wall of short bushes, reading a small metal sign that told me this was "Babyland," and then, just beyond that,

Dozens of small graves, some with headstones, others wooden crosses that families too poor burned children's names into, along with "Mommy loves her angel" and other sweet haunts of memorial. Then there were the saddest of all...small discs in the ground with a number on them...forgotten lives or too sad mommies who just couldn't give anymore?

There was a large sign that read something like, "Only one item on each grave, please."

Yeah, RIGHT!!!

There were toys everywhere...Popems, baby dolls, racecars, Hot Wheels, Barbie Dolls whose bottoms had been sucked just below the soil, Elmos, angels, windchimes...

bindrune pointed out one where there was a bear who looked so sad sitting next to an angel, his little blue paw up near his head. I began to take my camera out, noticing suddenly just how soft the soil was beneath my calloused feet...more chills, deep breaths...my left hand ached.

click!

Generally when I visit cemetaries they are very old, sometimes fairly forgotten. I feel safer in those, and am more pleased to find that someone has remembered there loved one after such a long time. Legacies, memories of other people's memories, etc. O'Brian's in Hudson is truly an amazing place for me, one of my favorite cemetaries that I feel so very calm in. They are just so distant from the world today, and I guess I get caught up in the idea that they had more integrity when they were alive than what the world often offers today. Rather pessimistic, I know, but I get lost in it no less.

Needless to say that when a family drove up to attend to their child's grave, I got startled, and went quietly across the road to the other half of Babyland.

And suddenly, I felt guilt for taking photos of the children's graves. It had never occured to me before, to feel guilty for capturing a moment according to me rather than with consideration of the families who have lost these lives. Like I said before, the cemetaries I am accustomed to have been aged, worn down, sometimes fallen apart, and generally forgotten.

I walked quietly, watching the family across the street water the flowers, clean off the older toys for newer ones.

bindrune went across to a field and fell down onto her back, watching the sky pass. Eventually, after much time in this space, and clicking the tree with bricks laid within, we moved on.

Still more to come...