That really is the only funny picture that I have for this particular post, only because the subject matter of this post is a bit more on the sentimental side. The kind of sentiment that makes your heart and feelings get all warm and fuzzy like a teddy bear that just snorted a bunch of Pixie Sticks. Outstanding.
If you have been following my blogs at all lately, then you know that I have been at a very "meh" kind of point in my life. So, last week I went for a stroll in the Old Bennington Cemetery. For those non-locals, the Old Bennington Cemetery is this ancient cemetery in Old Bennington, Vermont where poet Robert Frost is buried. It sits behind this elegant old church that I always told my grandparents that I wanted to get married in. Here is just a preview of it's beauty.
I figured that because it was a nice day outside, that I wouldn't have to worry about there being a lot of other people in the cemetery. School is still in session, and it is still a bit early for the tourists to start coming around. I took some time and looked at the breaking monuments for people who died in 1803. Saddens me that over the years due to misuse and vandalism they are being torn apart.
Anyway, for the most part I had the entire cemetery to myself. Until I went walking down the path towards Robert Frost's final resting place. That's when I had a run in with the only other person in that entire cemetery.
There was this lovely elderly lady who was standing over a tombstone holding a small chihuahua that was convulsing like it was suffering from some sort of puppy seizure. She had colored brown hair,cut into the style of a bob that definitely knocked a few years off of her elegant face. Her makeup was done perfectly, and because it was warm weather that day, she stood wearing salmon colored capri pants, a white button up shirt and was wearing a brown sun hat with BIG Jackie Kennedy Onassis sunglasses over her eyes. She had to be about 65, I guessed. Oh, and her toy dog's name was, ChiChi.
I said "Hello" to her, and she introduced herself as Constance. Constance asked me what I was doing at the cemetery and if I was there visiting someone.
"No, I am just out for a walk. I like it here. It's historic." I replied. The poor woman probably thought I was some sort of loony toon.
"I'm here visiting my husband, like I do every day." Constance informed me. It was then that I looked at the tombstone she was standing over. Her husband, Benjamin had passed away in 2010.
"I'm so sorry." I replied, my tone nervous and awkward. Constance shook her head and told me it was fine.
She told me that since the day he died, she comes and visits him twice a day with ChiChi because her happiest times of the day was "waking up and seeing his face first thing in the morning, and the last thing [she'd] see at night, giving her the purpose to do it all over again the next day."
Now, usually it's little comments like that that would normally make me want to barf, since I have pretty much decided that love only really exists in fairy tales and Hollywood nowadays. But honestly, that is what love is all about. That devotion! Many people have lost sight of what love actually really means and it's that!
Constance continued to inform me that she and Ben spent 44 years together and although she wanted to strangle him almost every day for those 44 years, she never loved him any less. They had four children, had numerous grandchildren, and then she told me what made me start to cry.
I suppose that Ben had really quickly ailing health. Sadly, he passed on in the hospital with Constance and their children by his side. While Ben was still coherent enough to carry on bits and pieces of conversation, he told Constance that when he dies, he wants her to remarry if a decent enough guy comes along. Constance, angered by Ben's attitude goes on this tirade about how she will only say wedding vows to one man and will hold them the most sacred. She then promises him that when he dies, she will come visit him in the morning and in the evening because it is what will get her through to the next day. And so she does.
She told me that she understands that it doesn't make a difference to Ben or not whether she is there twice a day or not. But she also told me that she was never one for breaking promises. Especially to him. Standing near her husbands grave and being there for an hour twice a day still makes her feel like she has that connection to him. She jokingly said that it was nice to have a little peace and quiet with him, since apparently he talked a lot while he was alive.
She told me that no matter what the circumstances are, there is a person out there for everybody who will have that devotion to you. Chivalry and romance isn't dead after all, it's just askew from what it was back when Ben and Constance first met. I would love to have the type of marriage that Constance described to me that she had with Ben. It was like Cinderella meets the Brady Bunch. I think in some weird way, the devotion she has to Ben, even in death, gives me hope that somewhere out there is the person I will have that connection with. Thank you Constance for enlightening me and telling me your story! Oh, and ChiChi is adorable. I wanted to clone him.
So sometimes you go to cemeteries to mourn the dead or visit them. If you are me, you go and you meet some really cool people that you can engage in good conversations with. Funny how life works like that, hmm? Maybe, if this whole "angels watching over us" dogma is real, then maybe just maybe Ben orchestrated this encounter from some cloud because he saw that we both needed to just chat with a random non dangerous stranger... Too bad, I don't believe in that dogma. But if I did; Bravo, Ben. Bravo.
;) xoxo
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