The Way to the Cemetery
This path takes no more than ten minutes.
An ordinary walk from home to the cemetery.
Yet in my mind it stretches into an entire lifetime.
It begins with leaving the house.
Then comes the descent down the hill. I always remember this place. There are apple trees there — untended, full of fruit. Each time, I find myself thinking of my mother and my eldest son. He was about two years old then, and they used to walk there together. This memory lives in my body rather than in my thoughts.
Next comes the forest.
Once, it felt vast — a real forest. Now it is more like a strip of woodland. But memory does not shrink with space. Here, my brothers and I used to gather snowdrops for my mother’s birthday. The fifth of May. The snowdrops always bloomed in time.
Then — the road.
As a child, it seemed large, perhaps because we ourselves were small.
Now it is simply an ordinary road, where cars pass only rarely.
Beyond it lies the river, and a small bridge across it. My father built that bridge. The river holds countless memories: a beach, summers, childhood days spent swimming and sunbathing, and later, long teenage afternoons when time felt endless.
After that, the path climbs uphill.
On the left stands a small Catholic church. We were baptised there after my mother’s death. She had wanted us to be baptised, but did not live to see it happen. My father, who was not religious, arranged everything. We learned prayers, took what felt like an exam. It mattered — not as religion, but as an act of remembrance.
Further along is the boarding school we always called “the silly school.” Children with disabilities lived there. My mother once worked there as a night carer. The children loved her. Some of them even came to our home. Once, they gave her a dog for her birthday. My younger brother named her Katya — after a girl he was in love with at the time.
Then the road rises again.
Sand appears underfoot.
The cemetery does not begin abruptly — it slowly approaches.
I like walking among the graves. Reading names. Looking at photographs.
It is not morbid. It is attentive.
Eventually, I reach our graves.
I remember my mother once saying:
“I would like to be buried in this cemetery. It is close to home. You will come to visit me often.”
This path is not about death.
It is about connection.
About a distance that can be walked, but cannot be measured in time.
Ten minutes of walking.
And an entire life within it.