I had so much fun with Writober last year that I am doing it again this year!

This story isn’t tied to a Writober Prompt, it’s just a shout out to The last day of September- or as I like to call it October’s Eve. Below my initials is the link to Writober.

A.M.

Come Join In the Writober Fun – Experience Writing

ANDREW WYETH

It was just a game – a silly game that my family would play before Halloween.

A week before the BIG DAY we used to sit down with a Thomas Guide Map ( google it ) in our dining room with the long dinner table and not so great lighting and plan a route to at least three cemeteries.

Our game involved traveling to cemeteries and finding people with our names and our birth dates on gravestones ( triple points awarded to the person who finds our family name on a Mausoleum ).

So far that hasn’t happened because our family name is Peacock and that isn’t exactly the most common name in the world.

By the same token, we aren’t exactly what one would call a traditional family.

Last Halloween on our cemetery tour I was coming up with nothing- not my birthday not even my name- Caroline. Can you believe it?

You can’t swing a dead cat in a room  full of living people let a lone a graveyard without hitting a Caroline or hitting someone with my birth date which is November5th.

But this year was not my year and just as I was about to give up my sister Ellen went dancing by with her score card filled.

Now when I say Ellen went dancing by me waving her scorecard in my direction- I am not taking poetic license. She really waltzed by me, ” It’s my day Caroline!” she sang.

” Oh no it is NOT.” I said.

I flew by her in a rage and on my way by I grabbed her card and tore it into little tiny bits. Then I tossed them in the air.

” Where are YOU going? ” she wanted to know.

” Guess. ”

She stopped and glared at the back of my head. I turned around and glared into her face.

” That’s – that is cheating Caroline  Peacock. ”

My sister trailed after me and followed me all the way to Oakwood Cemetery and she wailed and screeched about my cheating ways all the way to the back of the cemetery where they buried the suicides and the condemned  and the unbaptized.

And there they were. My scorecard was full. I won.

At our feet aged and weatherworn but still legible were –

my name on a headstone.

my sister’s name on a headstone

our brother’s names were there too

my mother and father’s names were carved deeply and filled with moss and arching above their names their titles as ” Mother and Father”

and our birth dates.

I was very, very pleased with myself. All I could think was it was to bad we didn’t get points for getting matches on the day we died because I would have won a gold medal that Halloween instead of just an extra hour of sitting on a memorial bench watching the sun come up on November1st.

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Oakwood Cemetery.
Beaver Dam WI USA
October2023

Photo A.M. Moscoso
Oakwood Cemetery.