Path to the Graveyard

Dear Future Grandchild,

What is the world like in 2099? Is it clean? Is it bright? Do the birds still sing? In 2013, the world was beautiful. I went to a very small middle school. It was so small that there were only five people in my English class. My English teacher would take us on walks around the school. We’d walk down a path that was shaded by trees. They were perfect places for birds to make their nests in, so we got to listen to them sing as we made our way to the end of the path. We walked down it more times than I could count. It didn’t matter what time of year it was, we would return to the path wrapped in our warmest coats and thickest sweaters, fighting against the cold of Winter. We would run down it sweating in our tank tops and shorts as the rays of the Summer sun rained down on us. Sometimes, if we asked our teacher nicely, she’d let us visit the graveyard next to the path. Being excited to walk through a graveyard sounds odd, but if you saw it you would understand why we loved it. It was a graveyard but it was absolutely filled with life. It was a mixture of unkempt grass and weeds that were littered with little yellow flowers. There was a tiny tree by the entrance with thick leaves that shaded the mossy ground below it. Often I would sit down under the tree and reach out to the tombstone next to it. I’d tap it on the side to say hello, before leaning back against the tree and closing my eyes, enjoying the breeze for a moment before we had to get up and keep moving. We were children who couldn’t sit still. We needed a place to walk and move around and get away from the stress of school: the graveyard and the path were those places. They did us a kindness by shading us from the sun, by giving us songs to listen to, and by giving us a place to breathe. However, despite everything these two places had given us, we didn’t give anything back.

My classmates and I were disrespectful. Along the path, we would sometimes find dead animals. Instead of leaving them alone, they would poke their bodies with sticks and their shoes. I didn’t participate in this, because I didn’t want to get in trouble when our teacher caught up with us, but I watched. I didn’t do anything to stop them. It was gross, prodding the corpses of flattened, dried up snakes and squirrels. They had died horrifically under the tires of the cars that sometimes cut through the path, but we couldn’t just leave them alone. On top of this, they would stand or sit on top of the sturdier tombstones. Most of the stones were old and crumbling away little by little, but that didn’t matter to the girls wearing white shorts who preferred not to sit on the ground. We added to the litter along the path, throwing gum wrappers into the trees. We got in trouble for everything we did, but our punishments didn’t compare to the time my friend threw a half full water bottle into the bushes. After that, our teachers organized a field trip to pick up litter at a nearby lake for one incredibly humid afternoon. It ended up being a good thing. The lake was cleaner, we got to miss class, and we found some cool stuff in the sand. Still, I regret that we never went back and cleaned up the path or the graveyard. They were kind hosts to us, but we never thanked them for letting us walk there, and I wish we had. 

So, why am I asking you these questions and telling you this story? I’d like to make a deal. You be kind to the paths you walk down, thank the trees you sit under, wave to the birds that sing to you, and from now on I’ll do the same. I won’t contribute to the trash along the paths you walk down. I will be kind to the animals around me. I will do my best to make sure you have everything I had as a child. All I ask is that if you see a twelve-year-old girl sitting on my tombstone, please tell her to go sit somewhere else. 

Love, 

Grandma