No Respect

To the man who has twice in the last week allowed his dogs to roam free and treat the cemetery like their personal bathroom... what is wrong with you? Where is your respect? Can't you see the love and care that people have put into these grave sites? Don't you feel the holiness of this ground?

I yelled at your dog. I called after you. You coward, you kept walking in the distance. You pretended that you didn't even hear me.

This isn't a dog park. It's not open space for your personal use. It deserves to be honored for what it is.

This is where you will find the woman whose husband brings flowers after mass every week. Did you know about her, before you let your dog ruin this week's bouquet? It is where the young mother, barely thirty, tragically lays. And home to infant triplets, to veterans, to a female Marine from WWII. This is a sacred place to come and just be, and most importantly to me, it is my daughter's home.

I know you saw me sitting there before you let your dogs loose. I know you saw me talking to her, and even that, the image of a grieving mother over her child's grave wasn't enough to instill understanding in your heart.

Can't you see that your actions have violated the only place in this world, where I can sit near my child? A place whose space allows me to feel her close. Nature that has inspired my thoughts. Ground that has absorbed my countless tears.

Do you even care about the pain that your carelessness has caused me?