People often think my life just starts and ends with Bonaventure Cemetery or that I’m just another tour guide or tour company owner. This is hardly the case and a perception that is unfortunate at times. If you ever meet me in person you’ll see I have broad shoulders. Some of that comes from digging graves as a teenager. I’ve done the hard labor and the mental labor equally. All of which lives in my company spirit and how we do things. In the 1980s, while working in a Victorian Cemetery in high school, on a hot summer’s day, I was weedeating at the very edge of the cemetery overlooking a farmer’s field from a higher point where it dropped off a few feet down. Suddenly, the wire blade began kicking up tiny bones, some of them in medical bags, some of them far older. It turns out I’d uncovered a forgotten section where stillborn infants had been reposited. Over time, the erosion had washed that edge more into the farmer’s field bringing the bones closer to the surface. In the end I suppose I saved it by bringing it to the attention of those in charge, but it to this day, remains unmarked and cannot say whether its any more protected than it once was. The world is full of such cemetery sections. Its like a dark secret. Most are only known to certain elders of towns or authorities. And when they die, that knowledge tends to go with them I’ve found. Today its unusual to find a family with 4 children let alone 10, 12 or 16. Having such stock was once seen as the ultimate statement of a family’s richness vs what they simply “owned.” It certainly meant longevity but was also a practical matter. Mothers and fathers knew the deal and at times wondered about the loving faces smiling up at them, “Will we all be together by Christmas? or “Will we all know each other next Spring?” It was not a question of “if,” but rather “WHO” — would end up dying young. This theme has stayed with me as in many ways, children were the number one customers and drivers of the funeral industry in America’s 19th century. Its a bittersweet subject of course but inescapable in my work so I wanted to make this video as a devotion of a kind. It will be one of many. Hope you enjoy it.
Monthly Archives: April 2022
Kelsey McGee Miracle Dog Update!
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KELSEY THE MIRACLE DOG! (as the song goes, “With A Little Help From My Friends”). That’s the nickname I gave to her when her vibration told me she would heal. It was 14 months ago, many of the white coat wearers said she’d be a gone in 3 months or less. Others cited she’d never regain feeling or walk again. I knew they were wrong in my being but also made a kind of peace with the odds. Yet Kelsey would prove them wrong at each step, never showing anything but her spunky self really even when its been hard for the humans too. The tail wag came back earliest some months ago, never really leaving. It was like the sign of hope from the start. Then came left foot curling, grabbing fingers, followed by eventual throwing that leg in her cart as if she was willing it forward. Along with that, more butt & hip shifting as she swam to propel and turn. In the past month or so, it was as if when I’d sit her down she naturally attempted to brace herself with her left leg but wasn’t sure what to make of it less to say it felt like strength returning. I made note of it. Then last week, my birthday week, amazing things. Kelsey met me at the door out of her cart on 3 legs. Still assisted with her recent surgery leg, but all of the same, using it to walk, toes on the ground. Incredible. But as many of you know, with the cancer having hit the right leg, her original ACL tear and surgery leg as a puppy and ironically the leg that ended up being her best leg in life, the surgeons felt it was 50/50 on amputation and a huge test of faith and will. But once more, Kelsey’s vibrations told me she wanted to keep it and the surgeons, some of the best in the biz in North Carolina, saved the leg. While I was in Champaign, Illinois for my birthday, Kelsey had a visit form her acupuncturist and something remarkable like this happened…….