“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague.
Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”
(Edgar Allan Poe)
It had been two years since our last visit there, but things don’t really change much out at the farm. To be sure, without the horses the pastures become more overgrown with every passing year and the invasive phragmites continue their nefarious attempt to take over the marshy island world, but the unique silence of that special place still rings clear. It is broken only by the occasional chipping of songbirds or the fussing of a greedy pine squirrel and, on our latest visit, the dull rat-a-tat-tat of the distant gunshots of piss-poor duck hunters blasting furiously at their wild prey.
We were fortunate to be able to make our small, sad journey this year on a rare and glorious mid-fall day. The cooling temperatures were this time soothed by abundant, warm sunshine; the ever-lowering sun bathed the island in a light that was soft, crystal-clear and golden. But no amount of beauty can really make up for the sadness of the task that sends us to that special place and so it was with heavy hearts we set ourselves to work.
It was hard going. Not only fighting the roots of the trees that watch over the souls residing in the small cemetary but fighting the hard clay that lies not far enough beneath the topsoil made digging the big, deep hole a decidedly heart-pumping effort. While Bob broke and scooped out layer after layer, I passed the time cleaning up the area a bit and looking, this time in vain, for the deer skull that had again fallen out of the crook of the big willow tree that stands alone to guard the pines and graves. It bothers me that it has gone missing; though perhaps macabre, it has always seemed to be a fitting overseer of this sacred space, its empty eyes a silent bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Though it took time, too soon for my dreading heart the deep hole was ready and one-by-one those who had found their way to The Peaceable Kingdom only to quickly leave again were taken out of the cooler and one-by-one I removed the plastic bags in which their mortal remains had been placed for temporary keeping in the safety of the freezer. To do this brings back a flood of memories and while the logical mind knows each small soul had done the only thing best for it under its individual circumstances, the heart sees them as a parade of failures, a too-long list of possibilities cut short far too soon. And so the tears began to fall.
Perhaps the hardest moment was to lay our little pine squirrel, Miss Mei, to her final rest with her sister. They had arrived together as eyes-just-opened babies last spring but her sister had died only a few days later, leaving Miss Mei bewildered and forced to grow up alone. For reasons we will never know, Miss Mei was slightly retarded and partially blind, but she had embraced her small life with all the enthusiastic ferociousness of a typical pine squirrel. Though extremely slow to wean, she was nonetheless loudly adamant in her demands for food and happily burned off her stereotypical high energy in the safety of her much-loved running wheel. In hindsight, whatever had been wrong with her sister had also affected Miss Mei, too late evidenced not only by her outward handicaps. For without any warning, one afternoon about six months after the sisters’ arrival I found Miss Mei dead in the bottom of her cage. Seemingly fallen in midstride as she was going about her busy pine squirrel business, I doubt she even knew what hit her. I could not help but sob as I gently tucked them in together, reunited at last under the protection of those older souls like sweet Bob E. Magoo and the Princess.
The tears continued to fall as, in concert with the setting sun, the earth dropped softly back into that big, deep hole; slowly but steadily obliterating the sight of the shrouded little bodies. Erasing them forever from eyes that see but searing them forever onto a heart that can never forget that once upon a time each one only asked for a chance to live and take their rightful place in this big world.
We had decided we’d best start more properly marking the graves so Bob poured the cement for the grave marker and as it hardened I carefully scribed the dates. Finally, there was nothing left to do except to say goodbye. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and in the thinning, silvering light I lit the traditional stick of incense. As it wafted over that sacred ground and its newest occupants, the tears returned to keep company with my prayers.
