Fuentesauco ~ The Cemetery and beyond

Today, I was hit by a quiet calm. It was surprising. It was amazing. It was as if I stood among my ancestors and I have yet to stand on Spanish soil.. I found a photograph of the entrance to the cemetery in Fuentesauco on the internet. I stared through the gateway, knowing my family's plots lay within. I knew they were not there. It wasn't actually their home. It was just the address we, the living, use to find where they were laid to rest. Seeing the high, stone, whitewashed wall around the perimeter and the higher arched stone that held the steel gates, I stared as if I had already walked into the opening that was barely discernable. I picked up my ever-ready magnifying glass and peered through the gates and a large calm descended over me. It was almost sluggish with a quietness I didn't recognize.

I yearn to see the cemetery wall, the gates, the stone tablets that must lay in harmony and balance inside and hope they include my ancestor's names etched and waiting for me. Could they be in a row as a family? Would they be disjointed but still connected with other inhabitants before them? Would I find Silvan stones that looked like little pieces of rock, upright and bold or sculpted in relief with a religious symbol? Would the names be worn down and unreadable or still visible to the naked eye?

Through the eye of the global internet, I feel like I've been there and the images of their life before they were taken through those stone gates entice and lure me to Spain. I want to see it for myself and wonder if I will feel the same calmness or more.... or less? Why do I want to see the stones at all? That answer is a simple one. They are part of me and our family. We left them behind in 1911 and now we, the descendants, want to touch a part of the soil, the air, the village, the memory if just for a few moments in time.