A Walk with the Dead

I walked through the Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland, twenty years ago, with a woman who I thought would be buried with me. We're not together anymore. Now I have a family, and after I dropped my son off to school I went to see the graves. It's good to have an urban adventure now and then, after you've had your coffee.

Floyd Seltzer died in 1984. His wife, Adriana, was to be buried next to him. What happened to her? If she's still alive she's 116 years old. I bet she found someone new. I bet it happened long before Floyd died, but he hoped against hope, and kept the plot in case she changed her mind. I imagine her to be Italian with curly her like a Bernini. Later I go online. I was wrong. Her family was from the Netherlands. She died in 2000. She's buried there next to Lloyd. The date remains blank.

From the back this grave looked like a bowling bowl. I figured it was a guy who was really into his league but it's the Dragonhorns, EJ and PJ. That makes no sense. Dr. Tran was born in 47 and lived 60 years. Apparently his wife was neither born nor died. She is eternal.

The words are in Cyrillic, and although she died in '97 there are flowers on the grave. The only graves I saw with pictures like this on them, were other graves in Cyrillic.

These people are obviously all connected although only two of the last names are the same. On closer inspection the three young people all died on the same day, May 7, 2006. What in earth happened that day? I imagine they were all friends and died in a boating accident. I don't know why I think it was a boat.

Child graves are the most brutal and most of them are dated when infant mortality was high. But here, graveside, was a Mother's Day card.

The card reads:
Dear Mom—The words I feel like not matter how many times. I say it you can't hear me. God has rescused [sic] you. And taken all your worries. Lord I question you not. I just miss my mother. Mom you know I [heart] my sisters it's just not easy, forgive it's just hard and Tank is so awesome and I want the kids closer so I just keep praying. I wish you could be here to laugh and get nails done and go eat I wish I could spoil my mom today I [heart] you, always Yellow Jackets.
But oddly the card was left here:
Captain Norton died in 1879 and his wife died in 1892!

I liked this vintage grave:

I leave the gates and glimpse the graves once more through the black iron fence and the roses. There are so many lives to contemplate at the Lone Fir. I once thought our grandchildren would visit our marker--I and that woman I loved. She's long gone like the host that lie in the ground here. I walk, and soon forget about her, them, as I return to the living.