I made a new friend.

Last week, when I was meditating in the cemetery, I finally decided to look down at what I was sitting on.

Wait. Is there a chance someone might think meditating in a cemetery is weird? Oh, yeah, maybe I should back up.

I’m always looking for a nice, quiet place to meditate, and it turns out that cemeteries are not only a great place to do it, but they’re also just a nice place in general to eat your lunch and be left the hell alone. When I’m training, and I give the class a lunch break, people continue to ask me questions and chat me up, even though I try to tell them with my eyes, “Show’s over, folks.”

So the one location where I train happens to be just steps away from a large city cemetery. Just five or six steps through a little wooded area, and Poof! I’m in heaven. There’s well-tended grass, flowers, and best of all, some goddamn peace and quiet. There are sometimes other people milling around quietly, and I assume they’re visiting their loved ones’ graves, but now that I’m sitting here typing this it’s hitting me—they probably don’t have any loved ones there either. They just want some peace and quiet too. 

Anyway, hanging out in cemeteries isn’t that weird for me, because when we were kids, my cousin Leslie and I often played in the cemetery next to her house. It was a great playground. Some of the tombstones were the perfect height and shape to use for a podium. We would sometimes run to be the first female President and Vice-President of the United States of America, so of course there were speeches to be given, and victory songs to be sung. (Sorry, Les, that I always made you VP. I admit that I was on a power trip.)

Or we would make up stories about the people that were buried wherever we happened to be playing. Not about their deaths, I mean, but about their lives. We would concoct fantastic stories about the past days of the people that we visited regularly, and we definitely had our favorites. (I recall a sheriff and his wife fondly; oh, the adventures they’d had!)

Which actually leads me back to my point at the beginning, when I finally decided to look down at what I was sitting on. 

Joseph and Frances. Joseph passed away in 1986, and poor Frances has just been waiting all of these years, probably somewhere nearby, waiting to join him. 

Or has she? Back in the days in the cemetery with my cousin, we would definitely have spun a great tale of woe about poor Frances.

But in those days, we didn’t have Google.

So, creativity be damned, I decided to look up Frances and see if she’s still hanging around. (Or, if she might even come strolling up to visit her dearly departed husband’s grave and find me sitting in front of it. That would be awkward.)

But it turns out that no, sadly, Frances is also no longer with us. She passed away in a completely different town, in a different part of the state, just six years ago. I wondered, why did she decide not to be buried with her husband, as was clearly the plan? Is there some ugly story there—was Joseph’s death her escape from him—or did she perhaps remarry? My mind started reeling with the possibilities of the dramatic soap opera plots my cousin and I used to spin. 

Frances’ obituary contained a picture, and I noticed that in life she had a beautiful smile.

I found myself wanting the best for her in the years since Joseph passed. I decided to read some of the comments in her online memorial to try to decipher whether or not Frances had been happy.

It was even better than that. 

Frances was a clown.

Francesca the clown, to be exact. The people who wrote in her guest book said things like, “We had such good times together, clowning around.” There was talk of wigs, and makeup, and mimes, and I got so excited that the more I read, the more amazing it was when I read the actual obituary and saw that my new best friend had been a professional clown for over 25 years. 

There was further talk of Frances’ infectious laugh, her kind heart, her vibrant spirit, memories of her at birthday parties, in parades, and watching wrestling with her friends. How she was always willing to share her gifts with strangers and friends alike. After a little more research, it turns out that she had been quite well known as Francesca the Clown in the city I was standing in.

I suddenly felt like I couldn’t go back to work; it was just too soon after the shock of losing my new friend. I felt tears welling up—tears of sadness never having met Francesca the Clown until now. 

And also tears of joy. I mean, this is it, right? This is why I came and sat on this spot, right? To be inspired by a stranger? I mean, I know that sounds crazy and all, but COME ON. I go out there to meditate, to find clarity and all, and I find this lovely story of this woman with this beautiful smile, and she’s a person who spent her life bringing joy to other people and there’s no way this is a coincidence so don’t even try to convince me.

Surely this the universe reminding me to be more like Francesca the Clown. To put myself out there, to share my gifts and all. I mean, I don’t really know what my gifts are, exactly, but I can figure that part out later, probably.

Seriously, though, that was cool. Right? I found a freaking clown in the graveyard. Sort of, I mean.