Memory... "Schoolyard Graveyard"

I don't know why this memory has been surfacing lately, but that's the exact reason I thought I'd talk about it. Maybe it'll recede back to the lower depths once it's basked in the spotlight for a while.

I've just been thinking about this pet hamster we had in our... gee, I wanna say first grade class but maybe we were too young then? If that's the case, it had to be our second grade class. Now that I think about it more, I do think it was our second grade class. It's sad that I don't even remember his name, or whether or not he was in fact a he. Point is, he or she died. And we buried him/her. It was outside our classroom and just outside the school office entrance. The teacher's aid did the digging and I don't remember who laid the hamster to rest. And now that I think about it, I wonder how the service went. Surely there couldn't have been any overt religious overtones, being a public school and all.

More than anything I've just been thinking about that patch of ground. We weren't there when the school was founded and we obviously weren't the first students to have a classroom pet. Many must have died and many must have been buried. I didn't think of it then. But all I've been thinking... all I've been visualizing is that ground and the bones. The countless amount of bones. Buried memories. I wonder if for anyone the memory is more poignant. If that death or any of those deaths was a trauma. Has anyone been living with the ghost of that memory? Do they remember the names? Do they wake in a cold sweat with teary eyes?

It wasn't just our hamster. There must have been more. Thinking about those others has made me think about the experience of my other classmates. I can't remember it being much of anything, or talking about it in the days after. But I have to assume... like with all communal experiences it was felt in uniquely personal ways. I'm tied to the imagery of that day. I wonder if someone is tied to the emotions. I wonder if anyone's paid any of it any mind whatsoever...


DS333, pondering.