Cemetery
Cemetery
GROENESTEEG
The iron gate creaked softly as it opened, as if the cemetery itself was breathing in the evening air. The path ahead was lined with old trees whose branches leaned over the graves like silent guardians.
I walked slowly between the stones, each one holding a name, a date, a fragment of a life that once filled the streets of Leiden. Moss covered the older graves, softening the edges of time. The world outside the walls the traffic, the noise, the rush seemed to fade into something distant and unimportant.
The wind moved gently through the leaves, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and old wood. I paused beside a weathered monument, tracing the faded letters with my eyes. Generations had passed since that name was spoken daily, yet here it still remained, quietly part of the landscape.
For a moment, the cemetery didn’t feel like an end of anything. It felt like a meeting point between past and present a place where time rests instead of running.
And in that stillness, I felt something rare: peace.