Gravedigging and Flower Grazing

Old iron foot bridges cross tranquil paths. The gold and red of autumn reflects in the lake below. Groves of pine dotted with a giant sequoia serving as backdrop for the Chinese tourist photos, smell grand in the crisp breeze.

The arboretum and greenhouses offer ancient orchids, ferns, English geranium, even coffee plants from Ethiopia on a botanical world tour of steamy beauty.

The stray cat at my feet meows for attention, sorely lacking in this, the somewhat off-season, at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin.

It is the day after the Feast of All Souls and the limestone wall encircling Glasnevin Cemetery next door beckons to be climbed. As the sun descends behind the clouds, I crawl among three- and four-meter tall monuments to the dead and over moss, around headstones tipping over from the weight of two-hundred years.

Where the loved ones of the O'Donovans, O'Malleys, O'Briens and Others once stood, I now close my eyes and lift in prayer the names of all the souls I've loved who have gone before me. Marion and Hazel, Larry and Corrado, Silas and Tommy, Carl, my grandparents... And, ever present in my prayers and on my mind, DJ.

Being Ireland, there is always a pub nearby to drown one's sorrows. Immediately to the left of the cemetery gate I find the Gravediggers Pub (properly referred to as John Kavanagh), built in 1833. Lifting a glass of Guinness to all the Souls, saints and sinners alike, I again thank God for the journey.