sooim lee

If you follow Green Point Avenue to the east, you will find Calvary Park Cemetery along the BQE road. Tombstones stand in order, just as Manhattan buildings line up. Sometimes I go to the park and read tombstones and stay in quiet tranquility.

Looking at the name of the deceased, I take a walk through the graveyard, guessing which country his ancestors were from, when he was born, and how long he lived and died. The tombstone born in 1700 can also be seen sometimes. I wiped the glass dust of the mausoleum windows and looked inside. Drawers are piled up.

A drawer containing a coffin after someone's death has been marked with a name and the year of his birth. There are also empty drawers to enter when someone in the family dies. When I die, I know nothing, but I don't want to go into this dark, cold drawer.

Walking through the park's graveyard, I feel like I entered a village in the middle of the century. There is a church in the center to console the dead. There is a row of large and small mausoleum around the church. A high stele engraved with a carving follows it, leading to small tombstones. The closer I get near BQE, the smaller the tombstones are. Perhaps the high Mausoleum where I can see Manhattan skyline is expensive. I haven't seen a tombstone with a Korean name on it yet.

The rich are buried in a mausoleum built of heavy stone, even when they die. The dead without money are buried as if they were dumped on the highway. The dead souls will hide quietly in broad daylight, and as the night goes on, they will come out and move like we live. Souls who have died a lot of money will enjoy the colorful party, and souls who have died without money are in the form of a community that is serving the rich souls.

Catholic Italians are buried a lot in Calvary Cemetery. A few years ago an Italian friend living in my neighborhood lost her girl. She didn't want to bury her daughter far away, so she buried in this cemetery near her house. She often walks in and out of the cemetery, complaining that the site is too expensive. It is different from Koreans who visit ancestral graves only on special days. The relationship with the dead soul doesn't seem as far away as we are.

I have thought death was the end and the eternal rest. Death at the Calvary Cemetery is another extension of life and a struggle.

'Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle shower of rain,

I am the field of ripening grain.

I am is the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush.

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the star shine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quite room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and bereft,

I am not there. I have not left.'

This is the poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. She is said to have written poems inspired by a Jewish girl next door, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who was unable to visit her dying mother in Germany due to the advent of the Nazis. The poem is the dead comfort the living.

Victims who were deceased by Coronavirus are kept in a freezer truck for storage of their bodies while wearing hospital uniforms. Within two weeks, the deceased, whose relatives did not show up, are buried on the Hart Island in Bronx, New York City. Workers armed with white protective suits and masks bury pine coffins bearing the deceased's name side by side. Even the deceased, who have relatives, must hold a funeral without being able to say goodbye with a hug or kiss.

How to console the grief of the bereaved families? Rather, the deceased should console the bereaved family.

I couldn't go to the funeral of my mother and father, who loved me dearly. I knew about my mother's death two months later and didn't hear my father's death either. It is only assumed that it was because they tried to catch the feud of inheritance discord. Who should I blame? I just lamented my own situation where I couldn't serve my parents close to me.

My father lived near the age of 100, so I was less sad. However, when I knew my mother's death two months later, I became unconscious and cried rolling on the floor. Did someone say time was medicine? I cried every time I went to the bathroom, and after 3 years, I had my first child and my sorrows died down. My mother, who couldn't say goodbye to me, seems to be hovering around me without leaving. I comforted my mother and myself by reciting a poem that 'Do not stand at my grave and weep.'

My beloved mother is not in the grave. My mom becomes the wind and strokes my head. She becomes gentle rain and wet my cheek. She becomes sunlight and warm hugs me.

I often talk to myself, touching the ring that my mother always wore 

"Mom, you don't have to hover around me anymore. Make yourself at home."