Remembering the Cypress Tree

There are places in one's life that are imprinted in the mind and cannot escape memory. These places could be a childhood home, a playground shared with friends, a school where one learned many lessons in life, a vacation spot where sordid adventures happened, or even a cemetery where one laid his father to rest eternally.

A view of the Greek village of Sesklo.

In a remote mountain village in Greece called "Sesklo," where there sits upon the serene hillsides of this agricultural paradise, a small church and cemetery dedicated to Saint Christopher. Only a handful of graves take up what little reserved space is left near the church. It is a forgotten place. Even the Sesklo villagers hardly ever visit their departed loved ones in the small cemetery. That is how Greeks deal with life. They live for the moment, mourn briefly the past, and always push toward the future. But in pushing toward the future, how many have forgotten the past?

It was in Saint Christopher's cemetery that my father was laid to rest back in May 2008, just over four years ago. I still think of him often. I remember the place. Is four years enough to mourn a deceased father? Does it ever end? Or do the melancholy memories reside in the mind until it comes my time to depart this mortal coil? Whatever the case, I cannot forget that day when my father's coffin was lowered into the ground.

A Greek Orthodox Priest

The Greek Orthodox priest was there, fulfilling his clerical duties by reciting last rites---though his yawning disconcerted me. I guess for him, it was just another burial of a local villager. But to me, this was my father. I only have (or had) one in this life of mine. I looked around at my family gathered. Those who were nearest to the grave picked up some lose dirt and threw a few fistfuls into the grave and on top of the coffin. Not sure what this symbolized, but I did the same while tears poured from my eyes like Stygian rivers flowing through Hades. I could not control the outpouring of my emotions.

I tried to show some decorum. I tried to be manly, like my father---who never wept, except for that one moment on his deathbed when he found out (back then) that I was not married (at the time) and he would not live to see a grandchild. I should say, not live to see a "grandson," because that is what he wanted in the end. A grandson named after him, as is the Greek tradition, naming the first son after the grandfather. But he did not live to be a grandfather. He did not live to be much of a father either. But I wept his loss as if it was me leaving this world.


A view of the bell tower of Saint Christopher's Greek Orthodox Church in Sesklo

I will always remember Saint Christopher's cemetery. I will always remember as everyone left my father's grave to return to their cars, how I staggered behind and could not leave. I waited there, underneath a cypress tree, watching the gravedigger shoveling more dry rocky dirt on top of my father's coffin.

It was underneath the lone cypress tree that I buckled. I was on my knees crying with a knotted pain in my gut. I could not leave him there. I cried out to my father who was no longer there---I could not leave him. I could not leave the man who I called "dad" all my life, though he found it easy to leave me and my mother many years ago. It was in his blood. He had to court women. Even then, with his body in repose and given back to the welcoming earth, I still imagined his womanizing soul was in a hurry to arrive in Heaven so that he could skirt-chase some sexy, slender seraphs. I guess that was his way. After all, he was a Kamateros.

~Andrew K.