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Who are the dead?
Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1 was the scene of an interesting tale with a moral. A woman whose husband had passed on to the spirit world was filled with sorrow. Life had become unbearably hard for her in his absence. She would go to the cemetery on a daily basis, but it would bring her little relief, and she mourned that her husband could no longer enjoy a life taken from him all too soon.
During one of her visits, her despair was so great that a great sleep overcame her. Upon waking she was frightened to find herself in the cemetery in the middle of the night. Suddenly, a ghost appeared coming from the tomb. She soon realized the apparition was the spirit of her husband. The widow was now both relieved and delighted to see this ghost, but soon she saw something else even more astonishing.
She looked around at all the tombs in her view, and she could see past the marble and concrete in the city of the dead. All of the spirits of the deceased were now visible to her. And to her amazement, all of the ghosts were smiling, happy and appeared almost lifelike.
There were old ghosts and young ghosts and ghosts of every description -- all were talking with one another and completely cheerful. The scene was that of a huge ghostly party or celebration.
She was puzzled. Then she looked around further into the distance. She could see with a type of x-ray vision past the cemetery walls to the world of the living beyond. There she saw a frightful sight. She saw mobs of vicious, selfish people who looked grotesque. They pushed, shoved, and knocked each other down. They were hateful to each other, and all were running someplace. Each one was trying to better the next to get to some unknown location. But in fact they were all going nowhere. This scene was macabre -- a cruel struggle of meaningless lunatics. The woman did not understand what this vision was supposed to mean. But it stood in sharp contrast to the earlier view of the carefree ghostly party.
Then the ghost of her husband, seeing his wife was upset, spoke to her. He smiled and said that this vision of the mad, hostile world beyond the graveyard is how the ghosts see the world of the so-called living, the world where his wife still dwelled. The husband's spirit told his wife not to be sad for him and the other ghosts for they were content. It was the "living" whom the ghosts felt sorry for, for they existed in a world of greed, stupidity and madness. The ghost told his wife that the ones who are not really alive, are not really happy, are the morbid beings in the world of "the living." The spirits of the dead who dwell in the graveyard, however, are quite happy.
It was said that the wife left the cemetery in a state of peace. Never again was she sad about her departed husband for she knew that his spirit was at rest and one day she would join him.
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