The city of Grand Rapids sits astride a straight north-south stretch of the Grand River as it makes its way from the centre of Michigan's Lower Peninsula to its terminus at Grand Haven on Lake Michigan. Over the course of the ages, the river has gently sculpted a valley, which the city has long overgrown. On the east side of the river, there is not much flat land, and the valley rises to the hills rather quickly. This is the oldest part of the city, and the early men of wealth and importance built their fine mansions on the crest of this hill, overlooking the city. Many of them still exist, now inhabited by doctors and lawyers. On the west side of the river, there is a wide flat plain, and then a steep rise. An almost uniform ridge from north to south, paralleling the river, divides the low river plain from a rather modest plateau of flat uplands.
Along the west side of the river, factories sprang up. The neighborhood attracted immigrants and working class people. In the early 20th Century, the area was teeming with Poles and Lithuanians, eager to work in the furniture mills that first brought national attention to Grand Rapids. As the years went on, the descendants of these immigrants became wealthier, and they moved up the hill. A sort of animosity was born between those who lived up the hill and those who lived down the hill. Nowadays, the lower west side is home to many Latino immigrants, and the animosity still exists.
A point, then, that is most interesting, is that the hill that divides the upper west side from the lower west side is home to no less than four cemeteries. At one portion of Leonard Street, a main east-west thoroughfare through the city, one passes between two cemeteries, one on each side of the road. The street cuts through the hill at a grade lower than the crest of the ridge, so the cemeteries are held back from the road by concrete embankments. As one drives through this little canyon of death, one is literally eye-level with the dead.
I consider that fact every time I drive that way, going down toward the river. Death is of course the great equalizer. The Poles and Lithuanians who worked in the factories are buried in those cemeteries. Their white-collar, suburban descendants are buried there. And, the Latinos will be buried there. One's station in life is utterly irrelevant in death on the west side, as commingling with every sort of neighbor is inevitable. The hills draw everyone together. It is especially interesting that one of the cemeteries is named Mt. Calvary, after another hill that brought humanity together.
And, I, perhaps with sensationalistic intent sometimes, make it a point to alert people of their proximity to the dead every time I pass by that way. They invariably "ooh" and "ugh", but I find it instructive. We think too little of death in our sanitary age. I would like to commend the city planner who decided to blast a road between two cemeteries, providing such a moment of reflection on an otherwise mundane urban commute. Time flies, much like the car down the hill, but death is always to be considered and prepared for - not as a morbid subject to dwell and sulk upon, but as an antidote to physical and spiritual lethargy and irresponsibility.
