Last night I almost got locked in a cemetery. A rare break in the clouds coaxed me out into the blustery sunshine of this, the first day of May. I was hungry and tired, but resisted the pull of the couch and the fridge and opted instead for a trip around the neighborhood. The gift of twenty-eight-ness is that I’ve learned about the dead end depression of the couch at the immediate end of a workday. I’ve lived the despondency of crumbs on the cushions from meals eaten from a plate on the knee. While I don’t always choose better, the turnings of age have given me sufficient evidence to understand that this is not the path to fulfillment. 

And so, I chose to lace up my boots and wriggle my arms through the sleeves of an old long-sleeved t-shirt. I’m listening to an audiobook about a maverick of the railroad industry—a Welchian CEO from a bygone era of brutal capitalism. While it’s far from the leadership I’m learning, I’m drawn to parts of this story: the absolute devotion to effort, the joy of testing yourself against a task, the brute tenacity of someone who will sacrifice health and rest for the chance to exercise the full measure of their ability. 

I tried that for a while. I worked twelve and fifteen hour days without breaks for food or water. I pushed aside the needs of my body and embraced stress that made it difficult to fall asleep and even more difficult to get up in the morning. And then, after so much striving, my body came to collect its debts. For me, blind tenacity didn’t, and now doesn’t, work. I resent this sometimes, fearful that my now limited energy and physical capacity will keep me from living all the way to the edges of this one magnificent life. Sometimes, I live vicariously through biographies on tape about railroad titans. 

I became so engrossed in a chapter outlining a particularly brutal proxy fight over a major Canadian railroad that I walked all the way to Forest Lawn without noticing. This two-hundred and seventy acre cemetery is nestled between Parkside and Elmwood Village. Its wooded hills and shaded vales are the permanent resting place for 165,000 people whose paths also wound through Buffalo. Distracted by headstones and epithets, I dropped my airpods into a pocket and wandered towards the Northwest corner of the property. 

I climbed a little knoll to examine a cluster of headstones belonging to a large family. One monument loomed particularly large—that of a boy, “killed at the extreme front of fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg, on the first day of fighting.” He was nineteen years, fifteen weeks, and one day old when he was killed, and was the oldest son of his parents, who now rest beside him. I walked further, to a couple of gold placards that I pass every day on my way to work but haven’t been able to read from my car in the few seconds it takes to pass them by. The lives I read about don’t seem especially exciting, no more than that marked by a headstone lying flat with the grass, camouflaged by lichen. In that moment I slipped towards scoffing, my long-lived curiosity unrequited by these lackluster remembrances. 

You’ll have to forgive me if this is a little on the nose, but it seems that the highlights of our lives—the stuff that would go on the four-sentence placards, are hardly the things most worth remembering about us. It is instead the unique sound of our laugh, or the way we always buy too much food when we’re having company. It’s the way we fall asleep during movies and remember the little things about the people we love. Our lives are really so small, and the striving within them is even smaller. It’s comforting really, to know that even our greatest achievements will blend into the soil that others will stand on. 

A weary looking volunteer startled me from my reflection and reminded me that the gates would close in thirty minutes. Surprised at the lateness, I decided to walk towards the visitor center that spills out onto a small college campus. I thought it would be a nice change from my usual walk home. When I got there however, the gate was already closed and locked. Undeterred, I picked up my pace, and made for the Southeastern gate, checking my watch. When I arrived at the huge marble arch, it too was already closed. Now genuinely concerned that I might be locked in, I considered whether I might be able to hop the fence. Instead, in a confident overestimation of my athleticism, I decided to make a run for it. Jeans and hiking boots were hardly the appropriate attire, and the deer already bedded down between headstones gave me a wary look as I passed. With three minutes to spare I jogged through the gate, both sweaty and huffing.

On the walk home I considered the daffodils and the tightly bound tulips and the weeping cherry trees draped out over the sidewalk. Glad to be alive, glad to be on the earth and not under it, glad to have a body that can run when I need it to, and glad not to have been locked into the cemetery overnight. 

Ansley Kelly

Ansley Kelly (’16) makes her home in Rochester, NY, where she delights in short, sweet summers spent sailing and long winters spent skiing at her favorite mountain. Between outdoor adventures, you can find her buying books more quickly than she can read them and indulging in mid-morning naps. She works for Wegmans Food Markets where she finds purpose and joy in feeding her community and the wider world.