The Neglected Grave

A while ago, I went for my brother in laws grandfathers’ death anniversary. He was a well respected man. Lots of people showed up at the graveyard to show their respect. The tomb was grand. Made of pure white marble or something similarly grand looking. Candles all around. One of the better looking tombs I have seen in my 21 years. Of course I didn’t know the man that much, to be honest. So I just stood there quietly and watched the proceedings. But after all was said and done and we were leaving the graveyard, I saw a sight that made me and my dad pause on the way out. After finishing the ceremonies at the grave we were visiting, they moved on to other ones. Usually it was customary to have graveyard prayers for all the graves where people were waiting to have it. I believe it was one of those special days on the church calendar. You know, when they pray for the dead and stuff. Well anyway when I was almost at the graveyard gate, I saw the priest and his assistant praying and circling a grave, which surprisingly had no one anywhere close to it. It seemed, the only people who remembered this deceased soul were the priest and his assistant. They were doing all the ceremonial rituals I have seen priests do so many times before. But I can’t remember a single time when there were no family or friends or someone at the grave. Usually it was the kin of the deceased person who called the priest to it. But not this time. Not for this man (or woman).

I couldn’t help wonder, what sort of path this person had walked in life, to get to such a sorry fate. Was he disliked by everyone, was he a bad father, a bad husband,son?Was he cruel in his time on earth. Perhaps he had committed heinous crimes. But I don’t think the church lets murderers and ppl like that be buried in their cemeteries. Or do they. I don’t really know.

Or was he a misunderstood person. One of those heroic folk who get persecuted for doing what they knew in their heart was right, but those things were against the norm or against the establishment. I’m only 21 but I ve seen enough in life to know that heroism gets cheered and celebrated only in movies and books. Such people are often looked down upon in life. People go to movies, they all want to see heroes. They are touched when they see their hero suffer and make sacrifices for doing right by their conscience. They cheer when the hero prevails and cry when their hero falls. They don’t care whether the city police hav a warrant against spiderman or batman. You see he’s just a misunderstood good guy who’s being persecuted by the ‘establishment’.

But you’d be surprised how many of these people will see the plight of a hero in their midst. In life, if the establishment is against a person, they look down upon them. A guy might get into a fight to save his friend or save someone in need of help, but if that causes that guy to get on the wanted list of the cops or serves time for it, then they re just another one of those hooligans who always gets into brawls. The reason they got into it? Oh who cares. These people always have some reason, one for every day, every fight, right??. Hypocrisy is a remarkably common and a disturbingly easy-to-acquire trait. What the movie going, superhero loving people don’t realize is that they are the establishment. They criticise the establishment for trampling good people, in movies, when they read about it in the paper, but all along it is them. They cheer for silly costume wearing heroes in movies, because well, they are supposed to be the heroes of the piece. Whether the hero of the movie is a costume wearing superhero or a more realistic shades of grey type character, any one with half a brain will know who the story is about. Its like going to a cricket match where ur country is playing another country. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out which side u r on. But the lines aren’t so clearly and conveniently drawn in real life. Unwilling to think for themselves, they go with popular opinion, like a herd of sheep. To me that’s what makes them the establishment.

How many have it in them to stand on their own, by their own judgement, their own conscience. How many will stand against the tide and be willing to swim against it, if needed. I don’t think there will be many. Funny how it all roughly works out just like the movies, huh. Isolated hero having to stand against everyone. Funny. Well funny is pushing it a bit but, ironical at least.

Of course I still have no idea what led this guy to this state. Hell, I don’t even know if he is in that state. Maybe his family don’t live around here and their flight was late or something. Truth is I don’t know. And I ll probably never know. I’m not gonna enquire either. I have other things to do you know. There may have been a great story there, one of heroism or maybe just one of being an incredible pain. I ll never know. But that’s life. People live and die. Some live as giants, by their deeds, heroics, influence. Some will be remembered. Most wont be. No matter how great their deeds were. Someone once said sometimes the greatest tombs can be found in the most desolate of places, marked by nothing but a cross marked in a rock, or a rifle stuck into the mud. I just hope that an afterlife exist, that heaven and hell exists. Just hope that all of it hadn’t counted for nothing. But all I can do is hope. Hope that our conscience and sense of right and wrong weren’t just the sad attempts of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose (to borrow a line from matrix:revolutions).

Thing is I don’t know if heaven and hell exists. I don’t know if good and evil and love have existence beyond the realms of the bunch of carbon molecules that make our body. My heart says it should. But my mind knows that I cant be sure. Maybe I ll never know. I don’t know how the universe is. I don’t know if good ppl will get their due as they should. ’Coz things aren’t always how we want them to be nah. But I do know how it should be. So I ll just live according to that. And hope…..hope that everything is as it should be. Maybe that is the point, after all