“The Heaven’s Graveyard”

By: Zyrine Jane D. Ada

The smell of the fresh flowers and melting candles lingers my nose, as I lay at the fresh moist grass of
the ground, and because of the boastful blazing sun that blinds my eyes, I closed my eyes, feeling the
atmosphere where I hear nothing but the sound of the air, I felt safe. As the wind caress my cheek, I
could feel the warm yet cold feeling, soon I got up because of the sound of the digging soil, the smell
of fresh soil quickly lingers my nose, I sighed “another death this year” my mother stated, I looked up
and my eyes went to the family crying and grieving, I felt a sudden pain in my chest, as if I felt the
same pain they felt. I was with my mother and father as we visit the Heaven’s Garden Memorial
Candelaria, a place for the dead, with their names carved at different tones of stones, with a fresh green
Bermuda grass. It has two gigantic rusty black gate with a guard house in the middle and a triangle roof
with a broken clock, It has this timeless beauty through the years with a black, brown, beige and gray
as a motif, a very minimal style that I prefer. There are a stone in the middle of the 2 coconut tree with
the cursive carving of Heaven’s Garden.

We sat near the tombstone of my younger brother who died when he was 3 years old, and under his
coffin is my grandfather who died when I was still a child and recently beside them my grandmother
named Amanda who recently died October of 2019, she is the one who taught me to pray, trust God
and he will paved the way. She’s crazier and more bitchier than me, but even she has that personality, I
love her, she is my idol and my inspiration. I remember telling her don’t die until I’m 20 because I
can’t handle it. How selfish of me, yet she is still as hard headed as before, she left me when I was 16.

As I finished reminiscing the past, I realized how that place is very memorable and special to me since
this is the place where the people I love lay beneath the cold ground, I still could feel her presence
whenever I went there, how I felt peace and comfortable when I’m there, every time I felt suffocated
from school works, the pressure, family problem or times whenever I feel worthless. I always go there,
how I love to visit them again specially my grandma, but this pandemic is the main reason why I
couldn’t visit her. I miss that place, it may seems wrong to say that I miss going to that cemetery, or it
may seems peculiar, but I really do miss going there, and I really miss the warm embrace my grandma
used to gave me. Once the pandemic end, the first thing I’ll do is to visit them.