Graveyard Visit
In the heart of Honolulu just on the outskirts of downtown, there’s an old cemetery that is literally surrounded by modern development. With the exception of a mowed lawn, the area isn’t maintained very well. The gates surrounding the cemetery are rusted, the grass is brown and dressed with leaves, and the roots of large banyan trees slowly swallow some of the tombstones.
On Saturday, I walked through this graveyard for the first time. Most, if not all of those laid to rest here died shortly before or soon after 1900. There are a couple of Catholic priests buried here, as well as a mass grave in what appears to be an entire church congregation. But the majority of gravesites are of individual family members, most of which have ethnic names and came from far off places. Born in Dublin. Born in Portugal. Born is Brazil.
Some of the markers show that multiple family members passed away within the same period time. Others show women and infant children being buried together. There was one enclosed area with two markers, both were infants from the same family that had passed within a year apart; Baby Edward & Baby Cherry.
I felt badly for these people. Not only had many of them died far too early in their lives, but now it seemed that most had long since been forgotten and their memory now tainted by the lack of deserving maintenance of the grounds. I’m not a fire and brimstone kind of guy, but it’s just a matter of respect. I want to do something for these people. They deserve a decent gravesite.
I was captivated by one site in particular, although I really don’t know why. Maybe it was because of her lovely name of Angelina. Or maybe because she had passed at the young age of fourteen. Maybe it was her heartwarming smile in her photo that remained on her tombstone, or the faded plastic roses that dressed her gravesite.
Although I didn’t have the capability or means to clean the entire graveyard, I weeded the area around Angelina’s gravesite. I walked over to the nearby hospital and purchased a small bouquet of flowers for her and put them on her site. It felt good to do that, and I intend to visit her again.