Author: zpotter

Working for Pap was my first job. I was 15 the summer he hired me on. It was the beginning of my relationship with death. You can’t help but get intimate with it in a cemetery; it surrounds you. Even at 15, I could feel the chill of its fingers when I was six feet down smoothing the sides of the graves.

            Even on the sunniest summer day, the feeling of being in that hole and knowing someone will be dropped in the spot your standing for eternity, well, it’s hard to explain just what it feels like. Creepy and eerie are the two words that come to mind, but I’m not sure they do it justice. It’s more a sense of foreboding and a strange realization that someone no longer living will be resting where you are standing. All I know for certain is I wanted to get out of that hole as fast as possible. 

That first summer I went home and thought about my own death every time I dug a plot. I’d spend the nights staring at the ceiling, sweating in the summer heat and wondering when I would go and how? It scared me.

I didn’t have time for fear when I was in the hole. Pap was always sitting up above in the backhoe, Camel dangling from the corner of his mouth, pointing out different spots he thought I’d missed in my efforts to smooth down the sides. It felt like torture at the time, but when I look back on it, I realize he was teaching me two lessons.

First off, he wanted it done perfect. He took pride in his work and wanted to provide the people who were buried in the cemetery and their families with a perfect, beautiful spot for their final resting place. There was no task so small it shouldn’t be executed to perfection. 

Second, and involving more extrapolation, he wanted me to take full advantage of every second of my life; live it to its maximum. I know I felt a strong desire to live after being down in the grave. It’s strange, because my head wasn’t that far from the top of the hole when I was digging and tamping, but the air felt cleaner and I felt more alive when I came up from smoothing those edges. Pap would always say, “I bet that tastes good,” when I climbed out, than chortle to himself.

            That last bit may sound clichéd, but it is the truth, and I’m sure he knew it well. He’d dug hundreds of these graves himself, burying a good chunk of Berwick over his 48 years as caretaker. It must have provided perspective and it explained some of the bitterness – putting people to rest after having watched them waste what time they had being a chief cause.

It is funny how death and time skew our memories, and allow us to create qualities in those we didn’t know well. When I was seventeen, my grandfather, Pap, died. For most of my life I had seen him as a crotchety old man, never happy, always bitter. He often complained about how unfair life was, and how it didn’t offer many fair shakes. At the same time, he seemed to shake life as hard as he could. 

            In the two plus years I had worked for him I found him to be more than what I had thought he was. He was the caretaker of the Berwick cemetery, Mt. Hope – I thought it was strange to have the word ‘hope’ in the name of a place holding such sadness. When he passed – an ugly death caused by the two-pack a day unfiltered Camel habit he had never attempted to kick – I was devastated, or at least that’s how I thought I was supposed to feel. In reality, I didn’t feel much, and that concerned me.

            When a family member passes – one who wasn’t abusive or cruel – you should feel sad. I was sad, or so I thought, but my grandfather hadn’t loved me. For the bulk of my life I felt like a burden to him, and though he viewed me as a mistake. At best, I think he saw me as a piece of ammunition he could use against my mother. This brought him great joy due to the constant battle being fought between the two; it’s cause rooted in some piece of history I was not privy too.

            I was the trump card he played when he was down, which was not infrequent. His eyes would sparkle with mean mirth when he would say something to the effect of “the boy is evidence of your inability to make good decisions,” which would cause my mother’s eyes to flash with anger, as my grandmother would tell him to hush and my face would burn with embarrassment. Before we lived with my grandparents, if we were visiting, we would leave right after that jibe.

            As time has subsided, I’ve forgotten most of the hostility and resentment surrounding my grandfather. He’s been dead almost 25 years and my mind doesn’t have the room to carry anger for someone so long past. Death and time: the perfect combination for forgetting.

            I remember more the two plus years I spent working for him. They are happier memories, which no doubt confuses the memory of how I felt at his death. I will always see the mirth in his eyes as he sat smoking in the backhoe asking how the view was every time I was six feet down in a grave, and I can still hear the scratchy laughter as he said it was a preview of what was to come.

He still carried bitterness and anger, but when I do remember them, I hear them in the context of the lessons he imparted. Though I don’t think they were intentional, they were well learned. 

            He taught me hard work, stubbornness, tough love (yes, love) and the importance of doing good work. I learned how to swear and how to blend in as one of the guys. The two-and-a-half summers I worked for him were the best summers of my life.

            Death cannot be defeated. Its career record is unblemished. The adage about death and taxes being the only certainties in life are true. When someone close to you dies, you can’t help but think on mortality: yours, theirs, and others who are close to you. It’s a natural second step after the passing of another.

            When Santiago Holmes passed, I wasn’t sad. I didn’t feel anything. I’m not sure if it was my fault or his, or if fault even needed to be placed on anyone’s doorstep. Our last words on this earth were spoken in anger, and were spoken over 20 years ago.

            I know his passing relieved my mother so in that regard I was happy. I know it sounds crass, but so many deaths are long, drawn out processes, beginning with a diagnosis and not ending until some years later. When the end does come, it is a blessing for all involved. I think the multiple years it took for Santiago to deteriorate and go took a toll on my mother, so she was able to find her own peace with his departure.

            My mother is and was such a caring person. She will stretch herself thin, to the point of tearing, to take care of another soul in need. I should know she raised me by herself while caring for her parents and working two jobs. I, in my own selfish ways, cannot be bothered to pour a glass of water for myself if someone is nearby who can do it for me.

            I admire my mother’s capacity for care, and am ashamed to say I have taken advantage of it whenever it seemed prudent and more often when it was not. 

            Just because she cares, I don’t want any confusion, and you thinking she is soft, or lacking in spine. She has a will of iron. If someone is being cruel, or abusing her sympathies, she will cut them off at the knees. On occasion, I go without water because I can read her moods.

            What I valued most about her – aside from her being my mother – was her consistency. Her dual abilities to care and be firm made her fair, and the most pragmatic and reasonable person I have known. They also made her caring for Santiago Holmes the most irregular behavior I had seen her take part in in my 40 years on this earth.