Part 1: Halloween Story
The first thing the previous tenant told me, the day I moved into my house, was that the neighbors across the street were extremely quiet. I thought it was an odd thing to say, except when I realized he was referring to the cemetery directly across my street.
He was right. After a few weeks of living in my house, I’d turn out the lights and enjoy the loud silence. No noise from roommates, neighbors, or cars. Peace and quiet. But the first oddity arrived quickly. Not in the shape of noise, but as an orb of glowing green light somewhere deep in the cemetery. I’d see it as I closed my curtains each night, and at first I thought nothing of it. Maybe it was a solar light someone had placed next to a headstone. But night after night, I saw the little green light dance from spot to spot and some days it didn’t appear at all.
By daylight, the cemetery didn’t scare me. In fact, someone had conveniently removed one of the iron bars in the fence directly across my house, leaving an opening wide enough to fit a body through. So the cemetery became my daily walk in the park, and I had easy access rather than walking half a mile to the main entrance. I also didn’t have to abide by the 7 pm closing time.
One crisp fall night, I saw the green light appear like an eye blinking in the black void of night. I don’t know where the burst of courage came from, but I found myself sneaking out like a cat on the prowl, and at 10 pm, crawling through the hole in the fence, determined to find the light. While I could see it from my window, I searched and searched between the tombs, but never found the source. That was the last time I ever saw it.
The mystery didn’t stop with the lights. My front door has two doors: one screen door with a lock, and a second regular door. I always lock the regular door, but never the screen door. Until suddenly I’d arrive home and find the screen door locked. At first, I thought maybe I had locked it by accident. The second time I thought I was going crazy. But then it kept happening a few times a month. I was going to ask my landlord if maybe the handle was broken, but I had a business trip, so I decided to wait until I returned.
While I was away, my parents ended up coming over to stay at my house because there had been a storm and their power was knocked out for days. One day, my mom called to share that the screen door was locked and hard to open. I told her I swore I had left it unlocked. A few days passed, and all was fine, until it happened again. She swore she hadn’t locked it, but when she came back from work, and it was clearly locked.
Cemeteries are places I usually visit, even when I travel. From walking through Okuno-in in Japan, one of the most strikingly beautiful places I’ve ever been to, to my favorite reading spot in Paris, Père Lachaise, to the cheerful, colorful cemetery in the ghost town of Terlingua, Texas. I find them fascinating, peaceful places full of memories and interesting characters—places to reflect on life and wonder about what else lies ahead.
But I have a theory that those folks tucked into the soil at the cemetery across my street sometimes feel a little lonely and like to play some pranks. When I’m in Austin, I still take my near-daily walks through the cemetery (mostly in daylight, don’t worry). I imagine how quiet it must be for them, so sometimes I tell them stories from my travels: about my “Around the World in 89 Days” trip that started as four days in Germany and turned into three months across Turkey, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia; about the unforgettable comic discomfort of riding camels in Morocco; and about running 50 kilometers, wondering if anyone from the 1800s could have imagined humans doing that for fun.
You may think I’m crazy, but since I started those cemetery walk-and-talks, I have never again seen any more green orb lights, and my door does not mysteriously lock itself anymore.
Part 2: Dia De Los Muertos
Tonight (Oct 30, 2025), I arrived home in the dark with exhausted legs after the gym. Instead of the usual stillness and quiet from the neighbors across the street, I heard something different. Music and laughter.
The sounds were coming from deep inside the cemetery, and once again, my curiosity got the best of me. Still in my workout clothes and by the light of the quarter moon, I pierced the darkness of the shadows and squeezed myself through the familiar gap between the iron bars of the fence.
As I found my footing, my eyes glazed over the silhouetted field of gravestones and crosses. It wasn’t the rustling of leaves or the creaking of trees on a windless night that invited me in, but the sound of trumpets and mariachi music, and the delicious smell of cooking food drifting from unseen corners of the cemetery.
Orange lights and candles gave the cemetery a soft welcoming glow, and I could see a crowd of 60 or more figures gathered in the distance. As I approached, I saw that a big patch of the cemetery was decorated with ofrendas, colorful skulls, and marigold flowers. Tables were lined with photos of smiling people. Some probably from the early 1900s, others more recent. Women dressed in colorful clothes and pink flower crowns. A few men had their faces painted as skulls and wore colorful ponchos. There was Mexican hot chocolate, menudo, tamales, and pan de muerto, of course.
I had stumbled into a celebration of the Mexican tradition, Dia de los Muertos, literally in my front yard. I stood toward the back of the crowd, observing, unsure if it was an event for the families of the descendants or if it was open to the public. As I stood there feeling awkward, debating whether to ask someone what was going on, to approach the food table, or to leave, a woman suddenly appeared next to me.
She had red lipstick and a flower crown on her head and seemed to materialize from thin air beside me. The next thing I knew, this stranger named Gloria was introducing me to the organizers of the event. Then she grabbed my hand, led me to the tables of food, and placed in one hand a plate full of tamales, tortillas, conches, cookies, and in my other hand, a mug of spiced hot chocolate. All the while, I was still in my sweaty gym shorts.
Attendees were a mix of Tejano descendants of those buried on this land, a few other neighbors like me who had wandered in, professors from the university, and representatives from the cemetery and the Mexican-American Cultural Heritage Center. There were a few speeches on the importance of preserving heritage and history through stories passed down from generation to generation. People sat on lawn chairs amongst the gravestones and there was a feeling of togetherness, respect, and pride in the air. I thought that those prankster souls must be loving all of the above-ground company they were getting today.
I love feeling of being more connected to those in the cemetery and neighborhood. The people whose graves I can see from my window are the same ones whose living relatives were here shaking my hand and sharing their cookies and tamales. The faded name on the slab of marble, “José Limón: Father & Husband; 1831-1862,” no longer feels like a complete stranger, but like a person with family who I just met, who had a challenging but fruitful life, and who had talents and left a legacy.
I have two final points. One is about the beauty of public spaces, and yes, cemeteries are some of those. In fact, back in the day, cemeteries used to be treated as parks—well-kept and places where people gathered and picnicked.
How can we learn about the history of a place and the people who lived here before us? We can take a second to imagine the type of lives they led and the events of their time. Think about how their struggles were so different from ours today, yet in many ways the same. Wonder about what made them happy and what they accomplished.
This cemetery in particular has graves from the late 1700’s right next to a fresh one from last week. There are headstones etched with Free Mason symbols, Arabic phrases, the cross, the Star of David, and very Mexican names next to very German names. The world down there very much matches the world up here, and public spaces like this one give all of us a moment of reflection, celebration, and connection with new people, all in a graveyard filled with bright colors and collective living memory.
This leads to the second point: I believe we have the wonderful responsibility and ability to carry on the memory of those who have passed on, and celebrate their lives over and over. There were hundreds of photographs on the ofrenda tonight. Old, young, white, black, brown, tall, short, rich, poor. Many of us there took the time to look at the photos one by one, to look into their faces, and wonder who they were and what they stood for. What they liked to eat, the music they listened to, and the dreams they had.
Recently, I’ve been thinking that the long way “home” can be perceived as death. Not in a morbid sense, but one that brings peace of mind and a bit more motivation. We are living this life and our short time, making the best we can with what we have, all the while hoping that we can breathe this air above the ground just a little bit longer. All we can do is surrender to circumstance while remembering that, in our power, we often still have the choice to take the longer way, wherever we are headed.
Even in death, our journeys continue, carried by those who remember our stories and our hearts. May we, in turn, carry others on their long way home. And may the infamous ‘dash’ between our dates grant us a long, winding, memorable voyage.
So while the neighbors across my street may not make much noise, I think they have a lot to teach us!
(PS: If you enjoyed this story, you may enjoy this one about what we can learn from Dia de Los Muertos, which I wrote about in 2024).
What We Can Learn From Dia de Los Muertos
Exactly one week ago, I woke up to loud noises across the street. To anyone else this is normal, but for me, it was strange because across my street is a huge cemetery. Nothi…
Loved your writing about your cemetery, especially the conclusion. Your neighbors came alive again. What a beautiful tribute to loved ones. Cemeteries are good neighbors and excellent teachers. Thank you for enlightening and reminding me. 🙏