Today I had lunch with a friend at the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery. Once downtrodden, weedy and beleaguered with broken, vandalized headstones, the graveyard was taken under the wing of a stalwart group of volunteers in 1994. The scary place where my two childhood friends and I rode our bikes, vulnerable to the ghosts we imagined still haunted, was transformed into a sweet place in the middle of a historic area of Santa Rosa, my hometown.
My friend and I had lunch on an ancient bench that is part of a cemetery plot. This place is now revered and people walk their dogs or take a noontime stroll. In September, a group does Lamplight tours in the dark with period costumes and vignettes about Sonoma County history and the people and families buried there. It may sound cheesy and it is incredibly fun with some great actors. Today, sitting under an old oak, it was quiet and strangely beguiling.
We spoke of our lives, his promotion, my continued search for work and shared our thoughts and feelings. My friend reminded me of a time in the 1980s when so many of our friends died of AIDS. We both watched people from our youth come down with a virus that then killed them very quickly. We were young people losing our community. Today, many of the men that I know live with HIV and they have had to worry about living rather than dying.
I came home thinking about how our lives have changed since HIV came to stay. I thought about death and what it means to live with purpose and with compassion. I still worry about all of that and try each week to find a job that means something somewhere somehow. For me, today, I know that I am fortunate to be healthy and agile and full of energy. However, I would be elated to bid this time in life adieu and consider unemployment just a ghost of the past.
No comments:
Post a Comment