Monday, December 7, 2009

Machias Community Cemetery

Machias, WA is a small town located just north east of my hometown Snohomish. To get there, you follow winding roads through farmland and horse pastures. It's a lovely drive for a Sunday afternoon in summer, which is when my friend Penelope and I ventured that way.

I had a specific purpose for heading out that way: my Uncle Fred was buried there and I wanted to pay my respects and investigate his place of burial. No other family members are buried there, at least as far as I know, so I figured it might be nice to pay a visit to his grave and tell him all about his new grandson, Gomez.

The cemetery itself is split by a road, the older "residents" on the northern side, while the more recent dead were buried on the southern side. I found my uncle's gravestone towards the most southern part of the graveyard. It's lovely, with the outline of a tree. I sat with him for a moment and told him what's been going on in our families lives, knowing he probably isn't there but wanting to tell him, just in case.
Afterwards I wandered around looking at the different markers and trees planted all around. There is no fence around this cemetery, which always feels a bit odd to me, but all in all it felt pretty peaceful. There is open sky above and fenced pastures on a few sides. I imagine it's quiet there most days, which is nice. The older cemetery has many overgrown headstones and some are so worn from the weather that you can hardly make out the letters and images. There were a few headstones with books on them, which I always enjoy. Though I have to say that this more recent one was my favorite of the bunch:

And so we took that good advice and wandered our way the most scenic way home...

No comments:

Post a Comment