A "Good" War

 

 

 

 

July 18, 2008
Yesterday was a bit overcast and cooler, so we decided that we would take a mid-day trek to the cemetery on our handy dandy bicycles. Off we headed with Kim in the lead; given her keen sense of direction, and my beleaguered cobblestone bicycling prowess I’m more comfortable following.

The ride is about 15 minutes through many city streets and lots of traffic. Again, we marvel at how cars just HATE (rather the drivers of the cars!) yielding for anything or anybody. Truly, it’s like it was written in their driver’s education manuals: “1) DO NOT, under any circumstances yield to bicycles and especially pedestrians. 2) If you believe that there’s a remote chance that you may have to yield, SPEED UP and 3) ALWAYS avoid eye contact”. I am not making this up.

Back to the cemetery; when you see it, you can’t miss it. It has a huge arched marbled entry way through which one initially sees rows of varying sized markers, statues and the periodic large mausoleums. One mausoleum was for the Piedmont family (of which this region is named) and another for, Borsolino, a very famous hat maker. A note on the Borsolino hats, when we were at the Ethnographic museum (no I haven’t blogged that as yet) they had a display of his famous hats. There in the mix were hats that I immediately recognized as styles having been worn by my mother and aunts while growing up. My mother and her sister always were dressed to the nines and stylish in their appearance over the years—a gene that I missed out on.

As we began our exploration, it quickly came to use that this place is really quite large and expansive and today’s posting is part one of what we know will be multiple trips. On this trip we chose to just walk around one or two areas so as to be a bit systematic.

The day was quiet and the only sounds really heard were the gentle cooing of the many pigeons that make the eaves their homes. As we walked, we noticed that in the ground, periodically were clear glassed coverings, like man hole covers. Upon further inspection, we realized that these coverings revealed an entire underground world of catacombs and as we moved further along, we came upon the stairs leading downward….This world will wait to be visited at another time.

One thing that brings this cemetery to life is that each grave marker has a picture of the deceased. One posted picture above is of a dapper appearing gentleman riding his bicycle. The pictures remind us of life and those pictured remind us that our time is short and limited. One cannot escape and so I am left to ponder just “how am I living my life, today, at this moment? This is the only moment I have and what am I making of it”? There are several scenes in the movie, “Little Big Man” (with Dustin Hoffman when he was a much younger man) where he visits with a main Native American Indian character called “Grandfather”. Each time when Dustin Hoffman would encounter Grandfather, Grandfather would remark, “Today is a good day to die…”. I’ve never forgotten those scenes, those words and their powerful message. As often as my little brain allows me, I try to remember and live that message along with the Buddhist and Taoist messages of life’s transitory and always changing nature.

Our wanderings led us to an area where many people had died on the same day(s). It didn’t take much to realize that these faces had been victims of aerial bombings and the inscriptions on their tombs bore this out. Entire families were killed at once. The bombings were carried out by the Americans and other Allies. Wikipedia tells us that:
“Alessandria was a tactical military target during World War II and was subjected to intense Allied bombing, the most serious being the raids of April 30, 1944, with 238 dead and hundreds wounded, and April 5, 1945, with 160 deaths, among them 60 children from the children's asylum in Via Gagliaudo (when the town had already been freed by the partisans)”.

(Later, it goes on to note that Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide a year later (April 30, 1945). He realized his reign of terror had come to an end and there was no escape for him but death.

Seeing these faces of children and mothers and brothers and fathers and uncles and aunts leaves us pensive and disturbed by human nature and unending cycles of war and hatred. Kim and I quietly discuss feeling haunted by these faces and share a sense of embarrassement and saddness that this city we have adopted as our temporary home was bombed by Americans. This bombing took place we are told, during what was supposed to be a "good" war. With this we find that this has been enough for today and we slowly head out to our bicycles to begin the journey home.

While riding I remember to be careful, to try to live another day and create more moments. I reflect upon my gratitude and vow to never forget….