just enough light

Addison Jonas Barnett was speechless when told there were no more cemetery plots available in Hillside Cemetery. Being speechless was not familiar territory for him. His eyes widened, he got all puffed up, and finally blurted with his normal bluster, “Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing. That just can’t be.” He paused to consider his next bit of bluster but came up short. With nothing else to offer, be blurted, “Well, I’ll be damned.”  With a frustrated exhale he seemed to just run out of exclamations.

Hillside Cemetery was the final resting place for four generations of the Barnett family, and A. J., as he was known by all, was counting so much on joining them some day, you’d think he was looking forward to it. The Barnetts were among the first to settle the land that became the town of Bynum. They and several other families had the foresight to set aside a small square plot at the edge of town for the cemetery, enclose it with a wrought iron fence, and plant oak saplings 20 feet apart along all four sides, just inside the fence. Over the decades, as families moved to Bynum, they too had purchased family plots and gone to great lengths to make them stately and befitting their assumed place of importance in the community.

The cemetery became the resting place for more people over several generations, and a favorite sitting place for those who wished to visit their dearly departed. The town had built small roads for automobile access. One central road cut right through the middle, from the entry gate on the east end to the far west end.  Another road bisected it north to south, and a perimeter road was built so that a row of plots could be positioned on the outside of the road, but still inside the fence. They weren’t so much roads as parallel ruts worn down by the funeral processions and those who drove there on weekends to tend the graves of loved ones.

The townspeople loved the symmetry of the roads, the rows of headstones, the oaks trees, now tall and stately, spaced evenly around it, and the four blue spruces centered in each of the quadrants. It was a peaceful and tidy place just far enough from the main road to miss lots of the noise from the truck traffic.

The Barnett’s family plot was among the largest and most ornate of all the family plots, but now, after more than 100 years, there was just enough space for a few more folks within the wrought iron confines.  A. J. was planning ahead for his grandchildren, when he inquired about expanding the family plot. When he was told that all the surrounding plots were taken, he asked for the nearest available plots. That’s when he got the news. There were no family plots available within the fence, only a few scattered single and double plots, and all but a few of those had been sold. All but a few plots already had a future occupant living out their days with the security of knowing where their final resting place would be.