The cemetery that I’m in the most is Page Jackson in Sanford, Florida. We (Gus and I) recently worked with the city and FPAN to start an Adopt a Cemetery project with them, hosting 4 clean-ups a year. Because some of the cemetery is under private ownership we will be focusing on the front section and the oldest, once called the Friendship and Union Cemetery. As soon as we have a date for our first clean up I’ll be posting, but we’re still ironing out details. However, we are VERY excited. (The section that I mention below is no longer safe to enter.)

Page Jackson is a cemetery that doesn’t follow a plan and it never has. It’s messy and sunken and doesn’t make sense. It’s horribly overgrown. In a place like that, I expect to see bones of some sort and it usually happens. We find them scattered around, almost always animal, but still always a shock when we see them. One day last year while we were walking the dirt road that curves around the cemetery we stopped and I picked up what I thought was an unusual rock, but when we looked a little closer it was actually bone. After a moment we photographed it and then tossed it back into the roadway, believing it was animal.

When I sent that photo to a friend that knows about osteological remains he asked me, “Where did you get this?” I told him. “That one’s human,” he said. As a result, I don’t toss them anymore, but instead photograph them in place and sometimes in my hand as well, and then put them right back where I found them. I keep flags in the car in case we ever find anything huge and obvious, but I’ve never had to use them. I use them for buried headstones and that kind of thing.

However, I always knew that there would be a day when I would see something so glaringly obvious in a cemetery that it would shock me. I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction, and it seems to work with everything, including bones, because I see them all the time now in historic cemeteries. I think it’s like noticing any other thing in life, once you see it you start seeing it everywhere, whatever it is. (When I was looking to adopt a new cat all I saw were calico cats everywhere. It was like other types of cats didn’t even exist.)

On our visit to Carrolton Cemetery in New Orleans we split up, each holding an umbrella and both of us freezing but determined to check out the cemeteries. Carrolton has a lot of decayed vaults and I saw many that were caved in. I would look up, getting a feel for the way the vaults were made, and then I would look down, seeing what was in the rubble. It was a lot of slate roofing tiles and a lot of casket hardware from where they just collapsed when the roof fell. I loved seeing the hardware, I think it’s beautiful and it was interesting to see a few examples. I took a peek in one vault though and there was a rib. It didn’t exactly startle me, I just thought it was interesting. I didn’t touch it and kept walking.

A day later we went to St. Louis Cemetery Number 2, which is actually my favorite one in the city. In that one we saw a lot of bone fragments but nothing obvious, and I believed that some were most likely from animals as well. In that cemetery they seemed to be everywhere, which made it more interesting for sure. I was watching where I stepped the whole time.

On the last day we had 2 hours before we had to head to the airport for a very late flight. I was cranky and hungry, Shawn was trying to find a place to get food for me so I’d shut up, and he passed a cemetery we had gone by multiple times, but had not gone in. (I’d prefer not to say the name.) He asked if I wanted to go in, I said no. He turned in anyway and I asked what he was doing.

“Let’s just take a look, because you’re tired but I know you’ll regret it if we don’t at least look, so come on.” He parked and I got out without comment. I knew he was probably right.

I walked over to the right to look at a mausoleum. I was reading the names and dates and he suddenly appeared and asked me to follow him in a tight voice, so I did.

“Look,” he said, pointing to a grave.

I looked. We were standing by a family plot and right there on the ground, literally next to my foot, was what could only be a femur. And next to that, a hip socket. Then a piece of jaw. Then a vertebrae. It was like the person had been scrambled and thrown into the air for the parts to land wherever they fell. I just stood there, staring.

There were 3 places with bone debris in that cemetery. I’m not exactly sure how they came to have that many bones on the surface, but there they were. It wasn’t a situation where I felt compelled to take action, either, because the cemetery was scrupulously maintained and burials here are different. There wasn’t anyone hanging out, picking up bits and pieces and putting them in their trunk, and it was obvious that no one had been pulled from their grave or casket. The bones were just…there. No vandalism had taken place that I could see. While it wasn’t exactly unsettling,  it was surprising.

We looked quietly but didn’t say much or touch anything. On the way to the airport we were quiet. Both tired, both a little shocked. I have a couple of friends that will pick up anything, and I kept wondering what their reaction would have been. I didn’t feel any inclination to touch these at all.

I still wonder if I’ll react the same way if it ever happens again.