A Little Picnic

Cemetery visits need not be gloomy

Farleigh drove Brenda and Fiona to the little cemetery next to the tiny Saint Joseph's church in Ammendale. They had each brought something for "lunch with the dead" on the overcast afternoon. Fiona had blankets, wine, and potato chips while Brenda supplied a batch of zucchini muffins, and vegetable soup in wide mouthed thermoses. 

Farleigh had coffee in thermoses, and crackers with peanut butter. Edwina and Frederick were buried close to Farleigh's mother, Laura. Brenda's mother was buried a few rows over, and told Brenda telepathically not to worry about the distance, and that she would partake of the feast in a spiritual manner.

Brenda wasn't shy about sharing any messages that she received from the dead. She still hadn't visited the Blundon's at Mount Olivet cemetery, and hoped that this trip to the tiny churchyard would give her clarification about her own "final" resting place. Farleigh was beginning to take the spiritual connections in stride when they showed up, or at least seemed like they had shown up.

He touched Edwina's headstone, and then placed his hand on Frederick's grave. Daffodils had begun to emerge. He placed a floral bouquet on his mother's grave, and Fiona said that Laura wanted him to take them back home at the end of the visit, as they were silk, and needed to last a long time. Farleigh believed her, and expressed his frustration at not being able to hear his own mother speak from the spirit world. "in time you will hear her clearly" Fiona said as she lit  half a dozen votive candles.

Two Christian brothers walked along the paved path next to the church, and waved to them. Fiona said that she thought the seminary would be destroyed by fire, and that there were some bad priests connected with the school. She also felt that she, her husband Frank, Farleigh, and Brenda would all be dead by then, but could watch the fire from a future dream.

Farleigh listened to Fiona tell her story about becoming a spirit medium. She had been very open minded to the possibilities of spirit communication, but like Brenda's mother, had no use for any kind of trickery. She explained that the living were in pain, and needed hope, not fraud.

There were so many questions about the spirit world, and Fiona explained that there was no one way to see it all. 

She was asked whether a 4 day old infant who died in the year 1462 was still an infant, sleeping, or gone forever. It was just fine to have no answers at all, according to Fiona's way of thinking. 

Life was confusing, and death had every right to be the same at times. Farleigh laid back on his mother's grave, and stretched out for a fake snooze. Brenda poured up coffee, fanned the fumes toward Farleigh who bolted upright, and announced that he wanted to take the mannequin Edwina home with him from the Blundon house. Brenda offered Frederick as well, but Farleigh wanted to see what it would be like with her around for awhile.

Neither Brenda, nor Fiona found his request a bit odd. Brenda lived for unusual people, and strange adventures.  She was well aware that all living things were mortal, and planned to get as much from life as possible. After coffee, and muffins, the "ghouls" headed to their respective homes with Fiona in her old car, and Farleigh in his with Brenda seated beside him.

Brenda spent the night with Farleigh, who explained that he wanted to dress Edwina, undress her, then see how he would feel with her likeness lurking at the foot of the bed that they had shared together. Brenda agreed that images of people could help to establish spirit contact, and she grew sad by the lack of Blundon and Water's family photographs in her life. As luck would have it, one of her customer's had given her a photograph of John Paul Blundon, Mr. Blundon's second son who was in the house the night Mr. Blundon was killed by the train.

Brenda came to the conclusion that he had dark thick hair, and ears that angled back, a serious face, and stern, but kind eyes. Maybe she would never know if she was right. Maybe she would see a lot of the Blundon Family in the spirit world.

CJ Marks