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Last week, a tidal wave of human sorrow, extending to the outermost reaches of Chicagoland, touched many area families, including my own. What sounded like a macabre tale from Edgar Allan Poe has for many been hell on earth.
My state of mind modulated somewhere between fury and numbness, as I listened to confirmation of the grisly details. Amid the constant reporting, my frantic search for the documents related to my father and grandmother's burial at Burr Oak Cemetery continued, only momentarily suspended, when I raised my head to watch Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's passionate plea for patience while law enforcement officials conducted their investigation.
There they were, exactly where I had placed them, safe and secure among my most personal possessions. In what was an unexpected find, along with the officially embossed documents confirming their interment, was a receipt stamped paid-in-full, for a burial lot for my mother at Burr Oak Cemetery.
As I read the words on the envelope containing the burial documents, "Burr Oak -- Chicago's Most Beautiful Cemetery" now a contradiction in terms, it was as if I was going back in time. It conjured up memories of, things I had not thought about for the longest time, connected to their passing.
Suddenly, I could picture the forgotten faces of people who came to pay their respects. I relived the feeling of calmness that came with knowing that the section of the cemetery where my grandmother was to be buried was called Fairlawn. Strangely, knowing this somehow allayed my fears and helped me through my first, intimate experience with death.
With remarkable clarity, memories of my grandmother's burial in 1976 returned. Crystal-clear, recollections of a sunny yet bitter-cold morning and of the profound sadness etched on my father's face came rushing back. It was a sorrow that, seven years later, I came to know, when my dad was laid to rest at her side, on a frigid February morning at Burr Oak Cemetery, where the wind seemed only to howl.
My sister called asking, "Anthony, what should we do?" After letting her know that I had located the documents, we decided to wait and allow the investigators time to sort it out. We believed we had made the right decision and with the documents in hand, would get answers to our questions. However, this has not been the case, as voicemail boxes have been full for several days and a recent decision by authorities to close the cemetery to the public has intensified our distress.
Reports that greed motivated this ghoulish scheme do nothing to blunt this torment. Nor do the talking heads, who insinuate that the funeral industry should be regulated and in the same breath, resembling a late-night infomercial, offer hotline numbers to those whose loved ones are or were interred at Burr Oak Cemetery.
In the end, there is one stark reality. The documents that I hold, bearing the official Chicago Burr Oak Cemetery Association's seal, were no deterrent to humankind's capacity to do harm.
