This past summer, on a hot Saturday afternoon back home in Oklahoma, I decided to take my car to the dealership for an oil change. Not surprisingly, this dealership is located in between a bunch of other dealerships. But the interesting thing is that located right across the street from these dealerships is a cemetery. This is the cemetery where my aunt’s grave is located.

While I was waiting for my car, I decided to go visit my aunt. My aunt’s grave is toward the back, so I had to walk through the cemetery to get there. As I trekked to my aunt’s gravesite, I noticed all of the gravestones with different years of birth and death inscribed on them, ranging from the mid-1800s to the present day. I mainly noticed the less elaborate gravestones because they were more intriguing to me. Anyway, I eventually reached my aunt, and for the first time in probably a couple of years, I stood over her grave. My aunt was tragically killed in a car accident on Nov. 13, 1997 in Houston, Texas. Her car was t-boned by a car that had run a red light as she was crossing the intersection. I will never forget that day and the weeks following her death. I was in the fifth grade and what happened was so much bigger than I could comprehend at the time.

In the Iranian tradition, my aunt has a full-body length gravestone, which is fully embedded in the ground parallel to her coffin. On her gravestone, there is a picture of her, a little vase for flowers, along with a mention of her two sons and her husband, who had passed some years earlier in Iran. Also on the gravestone is a poem, which is inscribed in Farsi (this is one reason why I wish I could read and write in Farsi).

As I stood over her grave on this hot summer day, a world of thoughts rushed through my head all at the same time. I don’t think I could describe all of the things that were going through my head in this single article. But cemeteries do that to you. I’ve found that a cemetery is one of the most peaceful and tranquil places there is. Even the distant sound of the cars that drove by the cemetery complimented this peaceful feeling I had.

At the same time, it was a very emotional feeling being there. I stood there and thought about all of the things going on in my life, the good and the bad, even though I was standing in a place that honored the dead. Maybe that’s why I thought about my life, though. There is a certain clarity one gets from being in such a peaceful place. And that clarity enables the stream of emotions that come to you in a cemetery, standing over a loved one.

I also decided to walk around the area. One thing that has stuck with me is that there is a little section of the cemetery that is almost entirely Iranian. This is where my aunt is located. So I walked around and took a look at some of the other graves, especially the ones that were in the traditional Iranian style, like my aunt’s. Two of these belonged to Iranian kids who had passed way too early (even earlier than my aunt). One kid had passed at the age of 21, and his picture was on his gravestone as well. There was also the grave of a girl who had died at the age of 16, and her picture was also on her gravestone. I remember hearing about her from my parents. Apparently, she had gotten caught in the gate in one of those gated neighborhoods. I remember hoping that these kids would never be forgotten by their loved ones. In fact, I remember getting the same feeling that I had had when walking through the cemetery and seen all of the gravestones before I got to my aunt. No one should ever be forgotten.

This brings me back to my aunt. I make sure to go by and visit her grave on occasion when I’m home because I don’t ever want to forget her. I know that her memory lives on in all of us who love her. My mom decided to have a remembrance of my aunt on what would have been her 50th birthday a couple of years ago, with a get together of close friends. At the get together, they did readings of her old poems and looked at pictures of her.

But one of my biggest regrets from my childhood is that I wasn’t closer to her. I have always been extremely close to her two sons, and I’ve always looked up to them. I consider them to be more like older brothers than cousins. But I wish I could have developed this closeness with their mom as well. I never got to meet their dad, but I was very fortunate to have had my aunt in the first 11 years of my life. I was too young to take advantage of my aunt’s love, and at the end of the day, I probably took my relationship with her for granted in my youth.

One thing that I did learn from this, though, is to never take the people I love for granted. They are the one constant in a person’s life and I know that when I’m at the lowest of my lows, I still have the people who love me. They make me who I am, but more than that, they are a part of me, and for this, I’m eternally grateful. I don’t know if it’s my youth that prevented me from developing a really good relationship with my aunt, but I do know that my aunt loved me a lot, regardless of everything. The other thing I know is that I try to never ever take the people I love for granted. This includes my family and my good friends.

Every time I go back to visit my aunt, I’m reminded of these things. I hope that everyone feels the same way about the people they love.

Navid Farnia is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He may be reached at nfarnia@cornellsun.com. Over the “Line” appears alternate Thursdays this semester.