From numbers to names in a forgotten graveyard
This cemetery covers about two-thirds of an acre, with a shrine at the rear holding rosary beads, painted rocks, pieces of paper with unsigned and sorrowful messages, shells, and dollar bills. The grass is diligently mowed between rows of stone markers without names. It was created in 1947, with numbers signifying the order of burials until they ended in 1979, and letters dividing right and left sides: P for Protestant, C for Catholic.
Jewish and Muslim patients are also buried here. Back in 2018, over the course of several years, a group of students from Gann Academy, a nearby Jewish high school,
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Ten years after burials ended, I trained in one of the psychiatry units at Metropolitan State Hospital. We sat on the floor next to catatonic patients, tried to speak their language we could not understand, and prescribed medications with many clear bad effects and fewer clear good effects. I had no idea a cemetery existed just down the hill, out of sight.
No one buried here would have chosen these biographies for themselves. The 8-year-old boy who fell from his wheelchair and fractured his skull. The 66-year-old who died of terminal burns from a faulty shower. The man who lived in Fernald for 47 unimaginable years before tuberculosis killed him. The resident who worked as a laundress in the hospital for 31 years. Each life story is conveyed with imperative respect. 'As you read,' cautions the website, 'please do so with the same spirit of kindness and communal reckoning that brought us to this work.' The project they created has a holy feel, especially in these times.
After the dog and I would finish our pentagon, she liked to bound back across the bridge again. The bridge always made her feel young and, of course, there were biscuits waiting in the car. She knew she was adored. Every aging, fragile need of hers was tenderly met.
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She did not know there was any other way.
Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.
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