In a cemetery, a peaceful place to contemplate life

I like cemeteries. I find the manicured lawns and towering trees beautiful and peaceful.

They’re sad places, I know that. But by the time you get to a cemetery, the hardest part is over.

I spent time at Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery in Phoenix recently for a story. While I was there, I walked among the neat rows of headstones.

I read the gravestones of the people buried there and think about what their lives would have been like. I silently thank those who served in the military.

Some of the gravestones are so old that the words on them are difficult to decipher. Some are so fresh that the pain must be, too.

I linger at the graves of children. Some of their dates of birth and death are the same. Some lived just days. It makes me grateful for advances in medical care.

I study the items people leave at the gravestones, though I don’t touch them. They are private. Flowers. Folded notes. Coins. Toy cars.

I picked up a plastic wrapper off the ground and pocketed it to drop in the trash.

There’s little traffic on these roads. The few cars creep along. It’s a different pace than the busy streets just outside the gates. There’s no hurry in a cemetery.

I think about the people I’ve lost and the places they are buried. My dad is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, too far away to visit often. I like to think that there are people walking through there who might pause at his headstone.

My thoughts are not prayers, but they feel a bit like that. I’m outside, but the cemetery feels like the inside of a church to me.

I hear birds sing and a murmur of voices from a nearby burial service. Children dart among the headstones, proof that life goes on.

It is beautiful, and peaceful.