Place Where You Live:

Carrollton, Georgia

The Home for The Dead

When you normally imagine a graveyard, you think of dark-black dead grass, covered in fog in the dead of night. Many would be void of life and used only as backgrounds for horror films. When I was young, I had the same thought process, but when I walk through the family graveyard, I see nothing but life. Old red brick walls surround the few graves, with one entrance on each wall. A concrete sidewalk greets you at each entryway as the grass laps at the edges. The grass is truly the greener grass as it’s well taken care of. There are two benches placed right in front of the fountain in the center. One is made of pure concrete, while the other is steel. When I sit on the concrete bench to think, I listen to the sounds of water flowing in the fountain behind me and breathe in the strong smell of chlorine from the nearby pool. In the summer when I was younger, I’d come out here all the time to swim never to visit the dead. The trees nearby attracted all kind of bugs. If you left your feet in the grass, you’d be attacked by fire ants which we called grave protectors. Their bites would burn for days, but you’d never be mad at the fire in your feet. In the sky, on rare occasions you’d see a beautiful white butterfly visit and rest on the flowers left behind for loved ones. Their smell could never overtake the chlorine, but if you got close enough, it would smell as if you walked into a flower shop. Roses outlining the land, tulips taking over and fighting with the vines. If you came at night to sit under the stars, you’d be visited by some of the fiercest mosquitos know to man. They could leave bites that would swell to the size of acorns and itch worse than a dog covered in fleas. The benches would be ice cold, but if you closed your eyes, it’s almost as if all the people who have passed are sitting with you, watching the stars, playing in the pool. Sometimes, it feels as if they never left.