An Italian country churchyard (on All Souls’ Day)

Isn’t there a reassuring feeling in country churchyards?

This morning I went to Ginestreto cemetery with my mother (‘grandma Lella‘ – nonna Lella – whom I owe most of the recipes I post on this blog) to pay visit to my grandparents, Sergio and Giuseppina (nonna Pina). My mother was born in this tiny hilltop village and spent her childhood there. Besides, when I was a child, we used to have a country house just outside the village. I remember driving past this cemetery when heading to the country house down the valley.

Of course, back then, with my grandparents still alive, the cemetery didn’t mean much to me. It just seemed to be part of the landscape, with its beautiful Romanesque church, and the brick walls all around.

The years have gone by and much has changed since then. Many uncles, aunts, relatives do not live in the upper village anymore. They moved down here, joining their kinsmen, friends, acquaintances.

I guess that what seems to reassure me in country churchyards is that even if people have departed from this world, leaving an empty space behind them, they seem to have moved just outside their village to join friends, relatives and acquaintances they spent their lives with. There seems to be a sense of continuity between life and death, as if death was just a bridge, the name of a short road between the village and the cemetery. But isn’t death a ‘bridge’ anyway? For believers and non-believers?

And then, of course, the beautiful hilly landscape all around, the peaceful atmosphere and the cats, real guardians of all country churchyards.

Here are some pictures I took this morning.

May all rest in peace.