Unexplainable Connection

Someone once asked me, "Why cemeteries? Do you feel something when you are standing there inside them and walking around?"

If you are wondering what this person meant by ‘feel’, it’s to mean something I guess what a psychic would feel. Like a premonition, or a presence of someone, or something. Hokie, I know. But that is the best way I can describe what he meant.

I do ‘feel’ things. Not in the, "You ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck?" from the Sixth Sense kind of way. I do have a sixth sense feeling though. However, I don’t get any feelings when I am in cemeteries. (I’ve only felt anything once, and that was when I went to visit my grandma’s grave site to see if her headstone was up yet.)

I only feel content and at peace when I am visiting the cemeteries. I’m not rushed, just taking my time wandering around. Taking pictures here, taking pictures there. Sometimes I’m so absorbed in just the photograph aspect that I don’t even pay attention to the inscriptions on the headstone. But I always end up going back to the same cemetery more than once or twice because of that fact. Then find other shots because I’ve taken the time to read them and see them in a different way.

It’s an unexplainable connection. No matter where I am or where I am going. I will always spot a cemetery and I get excited and mentioned it if I happen to be in the same car with someone. But whether I am by myself or not, when I see them, I make a mental note of it and plan a trip centered on visiting that cemetery I just found.

If I really had to put a finger on it, I guess it’s the history that drawls me to them. This in itself is funny really, considering I’m not a big history buff unless it has to do with my own ancestors. Go figure. But you can really learn a lot by just studying the dates and noting who is buried with whom, and who is buried in what section. Every town you go to, anyone who has had any impact on founding and/or developing the town into the cities as we know them today, a good majority of them are buried there. That is if they weren’t taken and buried back in their home towns, such as Sarah Winchester was.

The biggest attraction though? Simple really. I find them to be very beautiful. When I happen upon the smaller cemeteries that had been neglected and/or vandalized over the years, it just pains me. The vandalism pains me more so than anything. I just can’t believe that anyone could be so callous to deface and/or destroy a grave site. The neglected ones I can understand, a little. I know that eventually a lot of the smaller towns, mainly in the mountains, were booming one day, then all of a sudden became a ghost of what they once were. I think it is those small town ‘pioneer’ ghost towns I am so attracted to for that reason alone. Well, that and the whole American Old West, Wild West, and the California Gold Rush periods fascinate me.

Cemeteries hold a whisper of the past, of days long gone. So when I come across a cemetery that is nothing but a fence and maybe a wooden sign, which may or may not tell you the name of the cemetery, or perhaps maybe even a memorial of some sort displaying a little bit of history of the cemetery and its residents, it pains me to see a place where the past was been wiped away, like it never existed. I came across such a cemetery this past weekend.

I just learned that there was a cemetery up in the mountain side of Milpitas, so on Sunday I decided to take a drive up Calaveras Road. I lived in Milpitas a long time ago when I was a kid still in grammar school, but there is still a lot that I remember about that town. It has changed a lot over the years, but I can tell you that I don’t remember a cemetery being up there just past the park on Calaveras Road. Once I got there I knew why I never retained the memory of it being there as I had drove past it before as a child.

I didn’t notice is until I was driving right past it. I saw the huge sign over the locked gates, Laguna Cemetery. I flipped a bitch a little further up, came back down and flipped another bitch and parked. As I walked down to the gates all I could see past the gates were very tall weeds and some trees. To the left of the gates stood a granite memorial, giving you a little bit of history of this pioneer cemetery and who is buried there. There is even a copy of a map of all 44 plots. Past the fence I couldn’t see any headstone or any remaining stone framing where each of the plots once had been.

Over the years the cemetery had been heavily vandalized, what little remained had been removed to preserve the headstones and the history. There was something in me though that wouldn’t accept what my eyes were seeing. There had to be something left… Some ghost of a remainder… The next thing I knew, I was crawling under the fence and heading in.

I figured I’d walk the inside perimeter close to the fence. When I ventured about half way in I decided to cut across. So far all I could see and hear where the wild turkey’s roaming the area and the horses up top on the other side at the ranch. Past an oak tree, some over growth, and the over grown weeds I saw it. The one remaining skeleton of gave site #13 (after looking at the map outside), the Millers. The only two remaining headstones are those of Mary and Jacob Miller. Jacob’s you can barely make out, while Mary’s is still very legible.

There are rumors that the cemetery is haunted. Surrounding residents and park Rangers have been noted as hearing moaning, crying and other unearthly sounds. All I heard was noise from the nearby park and all I felt was content. As soon as I stepped foot into that cemetery I felt a calmness.

I felt at home.