Needless to Say, the Bones Were not Boring That Day!

     This last Memorial Day, my husband and I had quite the experience.  We decided that since I did not have the opportunity to go back home this year and visit my own family, we would go visit a few cemeteries in the area.  Visiting graves on Memorial Day has been long time tradition in my family.  I have been taught over and over again the importance of honoring ones ancestors, and learning of ones family history.  I'll be honest, when it is not Memorial Day, or Memorial Day weekend, cemeteries kind of give me the creeps, but there is something about that time of year that changes things.  I feel more peace, and calm, upon driving through the cemetery's entrance than I do any other time of the year.  This year, however, was a bit of a different story.
     This year was great, because I got to enjoy the holiday with my sweet husband, but it definitely was more than either of us had bargained for!  Lance and I were walking through the cemetery, reading the names of past peoples, pondering on the lives that they might have led.  There were many old, old stones that were difficult to read, some so old they were crumbling to the ground, so when we walked past this one, neither of us thought anything of it.  Something, however, caused me to double take, and I am surely glad I did!  What I found were... bones!  I called Lance over to look with me, and sure enough, they were real bones!  They aren't as easily seen in the above picture, but here's one that might be a bit easier.

     Those are TEETH! Real, actual, TEETH! If you zoom in on the first picture you can actually find more scattered about, among a few other bits and pieces of what I assume are more bone.  I couldn't stop looking at this at first.  I mean I knew that below all the worn stone and sad but loving words there were, well, the deceased, but why would I have ever dwelt on that?  I am a firm believer in the after life, and of heaven, etc, so my thoughts have always been more focused on what happens after death as far as one's spirit is concerned.  So this, this was interesting.
     Looking back we probably should have called right then, but since it was actually a Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, we weren't sure the cemetery offices would be open.  Monday morning however, I will never forget the reaction of the person I talked to.  The cemetery worker who answered the phone was pretty shocked.  In the worker's defense, I don't think I explained myself very well.  To be honest, I didn't really know what to say; I had never seen real bones in a cemetery.  I told the worker we found a piece of someone's skull by a grave that looked like it had been dug into on the corner of such and such street.  As you can imagine, with those words one's imagination can really go wild!
     All turned out well though, I was able to gather better words and describe exactly what we saw.  I got the cemetery's email and sent them the picture to better help them find the grave we were talking about.  I would be curious to know exactly what happened there, but the assumption is that some animal burrowed there, and those pieces of bone are what came up.  Needless to say, the cemetery was not boring that day!


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