the grave

today i went to visit my family's graves in imst. or at least i thought i would. i wanted to visit all of them. sounds like a lot, but it is only three. it was only three.

i found my mom's grave, easy to find because i've been there a few times before. less easy to find was my grandparent's grave, vegetation almost swallowing the cross and the small plaque with names and dates. and then i went looking for number three.

my great-granduncle, onkel fredi, died more than thirty years ago and i knew he was buried in that cemetery. i went up and down the stairs, i thought i remembered where it was, but no. it wasn't there.

standing there, looking for something that no longer existed, i met two women tending to a grave marked by a temporary wooden cross. mother and daughter. their husband and father had been buried there just two weeks ago. behind the wooden cross and fresh flowers stood an old gravestone, its plaque gone. on the side remains an old inscription: death is also a second birth. without immediately realising it, i had found where my great-granduncle's grave had been.

they told me about him, their husband and father. he had worked his entire life as a train dispatcher for the öbb, the austrian railways corporation. in the cellar he had built an astonishing model railway, recreating an iconic austrian landscape in miniature. at work he routed trains through a network. at home he built his own. tracks meeting, diverging, crossing. every train finding its way because someone had thought about the whole system before it ever started moving.

the women also told me that he loved second-hand things. some people collect new things because they promise possibilities. others collect the old because it has already proven itself worthy of another life. in the end, my great-granduncle's grave became his final second-hand thing.

the funeral had been organized by a local funeral home called der fährmann. this man spent his life helping others reach their destinations. then, at the end of his own journey, the ferryman took over.

before i left, they said they would include my great-granduncle in their prayers.