Visiting the graves of deceased Mickiewicz teachers

My school has a tradition, that every year, before the All Saints Day the delegation of students brings wreaths and lights candles at the graves of the deceased Mickiewicz teachers. Me and my class have done it this year.

On 29th of October we prepared wreaths that were to be put on tombstones. We made them from twigs and cones of coniferous trees, also from dried leaves and flowers. They all had red shields with name of the school on them.

On 30th of October me and my class went to two cemeteries, at which these teachers are buried - at Francuska Street and at Sienkiewicza Street in Katowice.

As we were walking among the graves one of our teachers has been telling us stories of the deceased - what subject were they teaching, etc. When we came to one of the graves, our teacher said that she can't say anything about the person lying there, because no one at the school could tell her who that teacher was. That was the thing that made me think about the memory. It is sad how easily we can be forgotten - we live our lives, but after we are gone there will be few people to remember us, to light a candle on our grave, unless we do something which makes our name recognizable all over the world. One day we have families, friends and colleagues, we work, we learn - we live. And the next day we are just another person lying in the graveyard with neglected gravestone and no candle on it - the mourning after our death will end, people will move on, and memory of us will fade.

Another thing I have noticed during the walk were rows of little tombstones - graves of little children. Some of them didn't even live a day. It seemed unfair to me that they didn't have chance to experience the life - its good and bad sides. I wondered who would have they become if they had lived longer - maybe some of them would cure cancer, AIDS or other fatal disease. Or some of them would become criminals and do a lot of bad things. There is no way we could possibly know that. But everybody should have their chance to be alive, to grow up, to feel loved and to make choices. These are things every human being should experience and its terrible to see that these kids weren't able to do so.