By Hyon O'Brien
Today is the 17th anniversary of my mother's passing. I will be visiting her gravesite in the countryside with my brothers, sisters and husband to remember her and thank her for her life.
I am glad for her sake that she got her wish to die in the spring. This was not so much a personal preference but a matter of thoughtfulness for the remaining family ― she knew that we would be paying an annual visit to her tomb over the ensuing years and wanted the season to be comfortable for us. Remembering her love of flowering trees, we have planted magnolia trees and azaleas, which will be in full bloom on the date of her death every year, around her resting place. Recently my third brother spent two weeks sprucing up the area where our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are buried. I look forward to seeing the change in the mountain setting overlooking the stream.
Speaking of gravesites, one of my perhaps unusual hobbies is a love of visiting cemeteries far and wide. The most impressive burial sites I have seen are the Egyptian pyramids in Giza on the outskirts of Cairo, Westminster Abbey in London and the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. But the place that I favored and visited more than any other is the humble Hackensack, New Jersey cemetery near Teaneck where we lived for 17 years.
During the growing years of our daughters, we frequented that place in springtime to spot the many bunny rabbits that roamed freely. I also took regular walks with friends there. Springtime boasted a great explosion of dogwood trees in bloom and it was more like walking through a neighborhood park than a cemetery. Another American cemetery that I love to visit is the Gate of Heaven, a large Catholic cemetery in Valhalla, New York, where my parents-in-law are buried. This place also looks very inviting with many trees and good landscaping (but we haven't seen any bunny rabbits).
When our older daughter lived in Paris many years ago, one of the highlights of our visit to her was spending time in the P?re Lachaise cemetery established by Napoleon I in 1804. With the help of a map of that huge place (118 acres), we walked around among the dead to spot the tombs of some of our favorite composers (Chopin, Rossini, Bizet), famous painters (Corot, Pissarro), writers (Honor? de Balzac, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Richard Wright), playwrights (Moliere), singers (Edith Piaf) and many more familiar names too numerous to list here.
The inhabitant that drew my attention the most in this garden-like cemetery was Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), whose 200th birthday is being celebrated worldwide this year. Some years ago we visited his house, which is open to public, in a village near Warsaw. When we stopped at his resting place in Paris years later, I felt as if I were paying a visit to an old friend's grave, his piano pieces having been my classical music of choice for so many years.
There is a great deal of cultural creativity involved in housing the dead that is fascinating to observe.
In New Orleans, because the water table is high, they have above-ground tombs that look like small houses. In Istanbul, I found a small cemetery overlooking the Bosporus strait that gives one a great feeling of open space in that crowded city. In Buenos Aires, inspired by the Broadway musical ``Evita," I searched out Eva Peron's final resting place in the La Recoleta cemetery. (It took her some time to get there as her body disappeared shortly after her death and was returned to Argentina more than two decades later.)
Apart from the austere Duarte family vault, I enjoyed the religious art expressed in intricate designs of mausoleums and statues amid many giant marble angels throughout the cemetery. The most crowded burial place in the world must be the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, the Czech Republic; 11,000 tall, thin gravestones slant in all directions and one can only try to imagine the density of the much more numerous dead crowded within this one city block.
The most emotionally challenging gravesite I've ever visited is the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial that honors 9,387 American soldiers who died in Europe during World War II. This cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach, one of the main landing points of the Normandy Invasion (June 6, 1944), on a vast 172-acre site. We spent hours walking around in awe, reading the names and the dates of birth and death of those who gave their lives for the freedom of others. In silent prayer, I gave them my thanks and salute. In the solemn quietness of the place, I communed with the dead.
An equally charged place for me is the Seoul National Cemetery in Dongjak-dong, Yongsan-gu. Established in 1956, it is the resting place of three Korean presidents as well as one of my cousins who died 45 years ago at the age of 23 while he was doing his mandatory military service. Soon after moving to Seoul five years ago, I searched out his grave and reported my return to him.
Is this fascination for the cemeteries my attempt to find a spiritual link to the past? I rather think that my fondness for burial places comes more from the appreciation of my present life. Among the dead, I am more acutely aware that I am alive. On a trip to Hong Kong a while ago, as I indulged in my hobby walking around the Happy Valley cemetery, I was reminded again and again that I will also face death and be buried somewhere one day.
In a way, visiting cemeteries keeps me humble. Leonardo Da Vinci said, ``While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die." Do you avoid thinking about death? And Mark Twain said, ``The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." Do you see his point?
Hyon O'Brien, a former reference librarian in the United States, has returned to Korea after 32 years of living abroad. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.