A Visit to Shama's Grave

I used to hate cemeteries.
I mean, what is there to like? It's a place of tears and sorrow, a place that symbolizes loss. More specifically, my father’s loss. I especially hated the cemetery in my town, where my father is buried. I visited this cemetery one time too many, for funerals and memorials, during my teen years. I hated everything about it. Just driving toward it made me uneasy, formed a tight knot in my stomach and a dull headache above my eyebrows. I hated the funeral home at the entrance, a massive ominous stone building; despised the religious men that lured by it, hoping make a buck by praying for your dead. The air was always dusty and dry, and there was hardly any shade, just rows upon rows of marble boxes, bright and shiny like teeth. A desert of stone.

This time, when I enter, I don’t feel any of it. At some point during my visit I actually find a single palm tree next to a lucky grave and stand in its shade for a minute, seeking relief from the blazing sun. I can’t hear the city from here, and there are no birds, which could seem creepy, but today I find it oddly soothing. I enjoy the peace and quiet. Maybe it’s because I’m not here for a funeral ,and the grave I’m looking for is so old that it’s somehow seems easier.

I’m here with Zehava – my second cousin, who’s been helping me with my research – and we’re looking for Shama’s grave, our great grandmother, who died at around 1914 and who’s been the basis for my novel. Zehava has been there once, over 10 years ago with her daughter. They found a mount of old dirt, with a wooden sign stuck in it that read: Shama Madhala. It’s unusual to have graves left without headstones. “Back then the family didn’t think it was important,” Zehava says, “they believed that if they’re already dead, then their souls are gone elsewhere, and why bother spend money on a stone? Don’t forget how poor they were back then!” And so Shama’s grave was left without a headstone for many decades.

Shama’s grave is in the oldest part of the cemetery, on a little hill, and when we stand there we can see the stone desert spread as far as the city’s newest high rises that border the cemetery. These new buildings are plain and stone coloured, and look like an extension of the rows of gravestones they overlook.

They renovated the cemetery since Zehava was last here, put a wall around the lot and stairs to climb the hill, but Zehava remembers the position of the grave from the washrooms and finds the spot easily. Execept… there are no more mounts of dirt. Since the last time Zehava was there the cemetery (maybe with the help of a donor? Or the city?) put up headstones for all the unattended mounts.

The headstones put up by the cemetery are simple and basic, a casting of rectangle concrete with a little square stone, placed like a pillow at the head of the grave. There are many nameless little graves, sad little baby graves, from the days when children died from curable diseases. Others are engraved: “Yemeni woman,” or “Persian child.” Some graves only have first names engraved, like “Esther,” or “Hava” and no other details. One grave reads: “Drowned in the Yarkon River.” Other: “The Young Daughter of Sharabi Family.” I’m fascinated by these graves and the stories behind them. But we can’t find Shama anywhere.

In recent years they built a computerized system to help people find their way in this maze of gravestones. When we type Shama’s name we get: “There are no results for this deceased.” Her grave has disappeared. “But I saw it in my own eyes!” Zehava cries. “How is that possible?” We try Shama’s sisters, even her mother, and their names all appear. We go visit Shama’s mother Simcha’s grave – a simple rectangle of concrete engraved with her name, her father’s name and the year of her death. She died in 1931, outlived her daughter by 17 years. We find pebble stones and place them carefully on her grave. It’s traditional. It’s a way of saying: We were here. We visited you. We remember.

We browse through the rows again and again. Could we have missed it? But if we did, then we should have at least found it on the computer!
Eventually, we realize – to our dismay – that her sign must have flown off before the renovation. I imagine a stormy night, rain washes over graves, shines the marble like mirrors, the wind blows the sign away, and a stream of rainwater carries it down the hill, where it gets covered in mud and dirt. When we walk back to the row of graves, Zehava positions herself back where she thinks the grave is, and finds herself standing by a nameless grave, next to two nameless baby graves. Maybe one of them is her baby daughter, who died at birth, shortly before Shama’s death?
“It’s here,” Zehava whispers with sorrow, “I can feel it. It’s here.”
I'm disappointed. I was hoping to find her time of death, maybe her father's name. I wanted to see her name written. But I'm not surprised. It’s almost expected that Shama’s grave would be nameless. A nameless grave to a woman who lived and died and left no mark, no picture, no document. A woman with no birth certificate and no grave. A woman deleted from history.

We kneel by the grave and touch the stone. The stone feels cool to our hot skin. It’s always so hot and bright in the cemetery. Maybe the sun reflects off the marble, and creates a hot air pocket. Why don’t they have more trees in here?

“I’m sorry, Savta,” Zehava says. Her voice is shaking. “Please forgive us.”
Suddenly I feel a hint of rage. It’s as if a genetic chip inside of me is mad on behalf of my grandmother who can no longer speak her mind. My grandmother who never forgave her mother for abandoning her, who never bothered to look up her grave. I know that if she was here she’d say: “That’s her punishment! For leaving us behind in Yemen, for choosing a man over me and my sister. We should be the ones forgiving her for what she’s done! We shouldn’t be begging her for forgiveness!”

This voice takes me by sueprise. Instead I say quietly: “First she should forgive herself,” and suddenly I know she never did. She died without forgiving herself. I almost feel as if she punished herself, as if she felt she didn’t deserve a proper headstone. And then I think about my character, the one from the novel, and my heart goes out to her. Surely she hoped for more from life. I wish her peace. I wish her to forgive herself and let herself rest.
“How could she have left so little?” I say, and Zehava say: “What do you mean? She left us! She left a dynasty.”
I look for a big pebble stone and place it on her grave.

They have water taps near the exit from the cemetery, and not only so visitors can wash the dust from their hands. According to Jewish tradition, you must wash your hands after visiting a cemetery; wash away the touch of death as if it is dirty, impure. When I was little I treated that rule with the utmost respect and never questioned it. I already felt as if death was a contagious disease I carried with me. I knew so many people who died. I had friends who lost their dads after I’d lost mine. I walked with it like it was my shadow, an invisible stalker. When I was ten I wrote a poem titled: I tasted the taste of cemetery.

This time I don’t bother washing my hands. I feel rebellious. In fact, at some point, as we walk away from the grave, I dare and put my fingers to my mouth. I lick them a little bit, to moisten them, and they taste salty and dusty. I taste the taste of the cemetery.
Then I panic and spit.