Bumping into new friends in a cemetery

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/06/2022 (1214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a warm Saturday evening that I was making my way home from Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. The sun was still hot in the sky and there was no sign of nightfall in spite of the numbers that were moving forward on the clock — this was the kind of hot (nearly) summer evening that Manitoba is notorious for.

I took a right on Highway 59, making the detour through Selkirk. I had enough time and daylight left to make a quick stop at St. Clements Cemetery to pay my respects to my family members that are buried there, before making my way home. I always try to stop in when I’m in the area. It’s the only place I’ve ever remembered visiting my grandparents on my dad’s side.

I pulled into the cemetery. It was mostly still, though I immediately saw a woman wandering around the graves. At first I thought she was just there to do what I had come to do — visit her loved ones. However, I noticed she wandered to various graves in different spots with a watering can in hand, with no particular spot or grave that she was visiting.

Maybe she worked there. It seemed like weird hours for a caretaker, but then again I don’t know much about the hours people keep besides my own.

I got out of the van and made my way to the Cook graves that take up a little section of two rows in the cemetery. I stood at the foot of my grandparents’ graves that are side by side and a row ahead of the resting place for my two uncles and my aunt. I wasn’t there long, just enough time to pause and remember them — whether it was when they were alive, or from the stories I’d heard about them. Then, I noticed a dedicated bench with two foil balloons tied to it blowing in the wind a few feet away. Curiosity struck. I wandered over. The balloons said “Happy Birthday,” and affixed to the bench there were two plaques. One said “Eddy Dear, beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin and friend” and the other plaque was a nod to some of the things he must’ve loved: “Hunting was his passion but Jeopardy! Was his game.”

What a lovely tribute.

I noticed the woman making her way towards me — or maybe to the bench, so I started to move. There was a part of me that felt as though I was intruding, since I was looking at a tribute to a person I didn’t know. She called out to me to let me know she wasn’t following me. She was standing at the bench, looking at the plaque and asked if I knew Eddy Dear.

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m just visiting my family.”

We struck up a conversation. She introduced herself as Rae. She was friendly and kind, and so generous with her words. She told me she lived close the cemetery with her husband and that she’d lived in Selkirk all her life. She’s retired now, but for many years she worked as a banker in the small city, and she knew nearly everyone who lived in Selkirk or has ties to the city. Fascinating.

Then she explained why she was there. She said she often comes to the cemetery to water flowers on graves and dust off cob webs and the remnants of cut grass and twigs on headstones in her spare time.

“I’ve got nothing else to do,” she told me, explaining how her mother (who died at the age of 33, leaving nine kids behind) is buried in the back of cemetery, as are other family members and friends.

So, she explained, she likes to wander around when she feels like it and take care of the people who are laid to rest in St. Clements. It’s something she enjoys, and it makes her feel good. We continued to chat, almost as though we were old friends catching up. She is the kind of person who is free with her words and refers to people by first and last name — I didn’t know any of them, but they are characters in the stories she’s telling me.

Then we saw this woman and man walking toward the part of the cemetery we were standing in.

They were holding large bags, and as the pair trudged towards us, Rae gave a hearty greeting. It turned out that they were relatives; a cousin (through marriage) Sharon and her son Kevin. They came — a week early — to decorate Sharon’s husband/Kevin’s father’s grave for Father’s Day with the items they had brought in the large bags.

We stood together and chatted— the relatives were all lovely enough to include me in their little random family reunion—and it felt natural, as though we were all friends. I asked if they’d take a selfie (photo) with me and I gave my number to Rae who told me she’ll ”give me a dingle” one of these days.

Later that evening I posted the photo with a brief story of the random and totally awesome encounter on my social media feeds; I mean, who makes friends at a cemetery on a Saturday night?! It was equal parts lovely and hilarious. As it turns out, the world is small, and the post I wrote took no time at all to make it back to Rae (who doesn’t even have a Facebook account!) Turns out I am friends on social media with relatives of Rae, Sharon, and Kevin. Members of the family saw my post, LIKED it and then let Rae know that she’d left a mark. (Something they say is not unusual for her.)

The next day, true to her word, Rae gave me a dingle on the phone and let me know that she saw my post. We chatted for a bit and made tentative plans to have lunch next time I’m in Selkirk. Perhaps Sharon and Kevin will join us. Who knows… But, it’s lovely to make friends in strange places, and it’s certainly lovely to know that there are people out there, like Rae, who are taking care of people and their memory in her spare time.

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter @ShelleyACook