My Night in the Graveyard

Nene posted about her night in the graveyard, and since my sister in law and I were just reminiscing about this during our vacation, I thought I would write about my own night in the graveyard.

My sister in law "H", married to Twist, was one of my close friends in High school. Her father was the caretaker of the cemetary in their city. They lived in an old house that was on the grounds of the cemetary, just outside the boundaries of the actual burial place. It was a beautiful old house with a huge tree in the front yard. They also had a wonderful little play house in the yard. It really was an idyllic place to live, IF you could forget there were dead people buried in the "backyard".

"H" had a huge crush on my brother. The first time she saw him, she knew she was going to marry him. But he hadn't had that experience himself, so it took several years before he took notice of her. In the mean time, she would ask me all about him. I would spend the night at her house some times and she would ask me questions like, "What's Twist's favorite color?" "What's Twist's favorite food?". :) Her mother had all kinds of interesting hobbies and things, and I loved going over to their house. And "H" usually liked to eat ice cream for dinner when I came, so that was fun too.

One time when I spent the night, we decided to take a walk in the graveyard. She had grown up there, and knew all of the stories. As we walked, she pointed out the crypts where some workman had heard moaning, or where they had found "leakage". She pointed out a crypt that had begun to decay, that they had to relocate. When they opened the crypt, they found that one of the bodies had grown a full red beard. (Hair continues to grow after death.) She showed me one statue of a little boy holding a bird's nest. It was atop the grave of a small boy who had died too soon. As we walked, the stories became scarier, and scarier. At one point I think we even started running home because we were so scared.

We felt stupid for being scared, so slowed down to a walk and laughed it off. Suddenly we heard what sounded like a woman screaming! I bolted like a cat thrown in water! "H" froze and hid her head in her hands. As I ran, I noticed she wasn't with me, so I turned to see where she was. As I did, I saw her younger brother riding towards us on his bike, squawking like a peacock! It actually was a peacock imitation, but in our frenzied minds, it sounded like a woman screaming. :) Hey, maybe that's when I got my gray hair!