I grew up across the street from a cemetery.

 

I mean, literally, across the street.

 

The stretch of land the cemetery was on extended from the street perpendicular to our house on one side, and to a small forest on the other.

 

There were no houses across the street from us, only four large, square grassy lots of land separated by narrow paved paths barely wide enough for a car to fit. Each lot was dotted with gray stone slabs sticking up out of the ground, placed in semi-straight lines in the middle of the lawn or within slightly raised, concrete-framed squares.

 

As I looked out the front door of our house, the lot furthest to the left, abutting the main perpendicular road outside the white picket-fence border of the cemetery, contained the oldest gravestones, one of which dates back to 1776.

 

The furthest to the right contains the most recent graves, including some of people I knew well in my childhood. That lot was nearly empty when I was a kid riding my bike down those narrow paved paths and now I bet there aren’t any plots available.

 

I grew up in that cemetery. My parents always joked that we had the “quietest neighbors.” I think they appreciated that it was a safe place for me and the other neighborhood kids to play.

 

We played “capture the flag,” using the middle path as “no man’s land” and running between the stones as we tried to procure the other teams’ flag. Our other game was, appropriately, “ghost in the graveyard.”

 

We never saw it as disrespectful, but rather that we were bringing life and joy to a place that was typically viewed as desolate and solemn and, unfortunately, often forgotten.

 

We never played there when there was a funeral or visitors. But the visitors were rare.

 

I’m sure there are people who would think using a cemetery as a playground was sacrilegious, but neither our parents or anyone else ever said a word about it or told us not to do it.

In fact, the narrow roads between the flats of land in the cemetery were where I learned how to ride my first two wheel bike, my dad holding on to the looped bar extending up from the green sparkly banana seat. It was also there I took my first tumble over the handle bars years later when I practiced riding my upgraded 3-speed bike with the foreign “handlebar brakes” that took me crashing down onto the pavement.

 

The hill on the far side of the cemetery, which contained a very old, rusty door pressed into its side (a door we tried desperately to open over the years, jamming broken pieces of glass or nails into the keyhole to no avail), was where I would sit and write short stories…about cemeteries. (very meta).

 

I also walked through the cemetery to get to my best friend’s house just down the road from thethe other side. She would take the same path to come to our house. Again, my parents liked that we didn’t have to walk on a busy road with no shoulder.

 

The cemetery represented safety, peace and quiet when I needed it, a place to meet with friends and enjoy the outdoor play that is so uncommon these days and I think it also made me comfortable with death from a very young age.

 

In my travels I’m always drawn to visit cemeteries and graveyards. The most memorable one I visited was in the San Michele Cemetery in Venice.

 

“Cemetery Island” was one of the available boat trips in the archipelago, departing from the main island. However, it didn’t have nearly as many routes on the boat schedule so I was slightly concerned I’d get stuck there and have to sleep amongst the graves, but I had to see this “island cemetery.”

 

It was beautiful. Every gravestone had elaborate shrines with flowers and miniature statues, and most uniquely, pictures of the deceased.

 

I wondered why we didn’t do that in our culture? It made it feel so much more personal to see the face of the one who had passed instead of just a last name carved into stone. Those letters don’t conjure a face, or evoke an emotion or wonder about the soul who was laid to rest. Plain gravestones are by their very nature, cold, distant and generic.

 

They tell us nothing about the life behind the letters.

 

The Venetian way felt more personal. I wandered and wondered about the life stories of the individuals portrayed in the pictures, and pondered my own life story, which at the time of my visit to Cemetery Island had lasted a whole quarter of a century.

 

Wandering through a cemetery while on vacation may sound macabre, but because of my history with them, cemeteries always seem interesting and familiar to me.

 

They also remind me to be humble about life and the time we are given in this body and on this earth.

 

I have found later in life that a lot of the Stoic philosophy resonates with me. In particular, the phrase “memento mori,” latin for “remember you must die,” has been an anchor to Stoic philosophers and a reminder that we should live each day as though it is our last.

 

Stoic scholar Ryan Holiday describes why memento mori is important to keep in our. minds:

 

“The point of this reminder isn’t to be morbid or promote fear, but to inspire, motivate and clarify. The idea has been central to art, philosophy, literature, architecture, and more throughout history. As Socrates says in Plato’s Phaedo, “The one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.”

 

He also quotes Marcus Aurelius, who meditated on his death every day, ““You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” 

 

And then of course, for my fellow GOT fans, we have the Braavos motto: “Valar morghulis,” which is translated to “All men must die.”

 

I have found it comforting and motivating, but not always easy, to meditate on death as a way to honor life. I try to force myself to remember that this is inevitable and that I have a choice in how I think about it.

Yes, easier said that done, but I thought if I was ever going to write about death then the night before All Hallow’s Eve would be an appropriate time to do so.

 

In addition to Halloween being a celebration honoring the dead, while simultaneously celebrating life, Halloween also falls exactly between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.

This is symbolic in that during the equinox we are in perfect balance between light and dark. Or, if you’d like, perfect balance between life and death. 

At the winter solstice we reach our darkest hour, but we celebrate the return of the light, which is always waiting on the other side– another analogy for balancing life and death.

 

Regardless of what you may believe spiritually, religiously, scientifically or any other way of thinking about the meaning behind life and death (including not assigning ANY meaning to it), the fact is valar morghulis and memento mori are truth.

All men must die.

 

Rather than fear the inevitable, what if we used this truth of our limited existence to expand our ability to LIVE, now?

 

Here’s a unique warrior challenge to dip a toe in the waters of confronting this sometimes fearful truth—take a walk in a cemetery sometime this month. 

Look around at the stones and the names and acknowledge the lives of strangers with wonder as you contemplate your own life story and where it ultimately ends. Try to be detached from fear or anxiety with this practice. Open yourself up to the question Marcus Aurelius implores us to consider—if we had to leave this world right now, would we feel satisfied? 

If the answer is “no,” then what are we waiting for? What can we do today and every day moving forward to change our answer to that question?

 

I’ll give you a pass on completing this assignment on October 31st. Even I didn’t like walking through “my own” cemetery on Halloween when I was a kid. 

For further reading on memento mori, visit The Daily Stoic website:

https://dailystoic.com/history-of-memento-mori