EX-COVEIRO RELATA O QUE ACONTECEU APÓS O ENTERRO DE UM JOVEM EM 1996. ITEM PERMANECEU LÁ POR 30 ANOS 

EX-COVEIRO RELATA O QUE ACONTECEU APÓS O ENTERRO DE UM JOVEM EM 1996. ITEM PERMANECEU LÁ POR 30 ANOS

In 1996, I officiated at the funeral of an 18-year-old boy in the municipal cemetery of Passo Fundo, in Rio Grande do Sul. In the middle of the ceremony, I saw his mother recognize a man approaching from a distance and yell at him in front of everyone. I had no idea what was happening, but the next day, things I couldn’t explain started happening near that grave.

  Then a lady who always frequented the cemetery told me something that touched me, and I believed that maybe I could help.  I returned to that tomb alone, and it was then that I saw that man again, and what happened in that tomb I carry with me to this day.  My name is Adelino Costa Fagundes, I am 66 years old, and this is my story in a few minutes.

  I had been working as a gravedigger in that job for several years.  And with time, we learn to live with the routine of a cemetery.  Learn to respect the silence of the place.  She learns that each family carries its own pain in its own way.  I thought I’d seen it all in that job, but there was one case that year that stuck in my mind in a way I could never quite explain, not even to myself , even after thinking about it for so long .

  It was Diego Fernandes Costa, an 18-year-old.  It was a typical workday when a colleague of mine walked past me and mentioned that there was going to be a funeral in the afternoon.  He said he was a young man and that his family was already on their way to the cemetery.  He said nothing more about the cause of death, and I did n’t ask either.

  In our workplace, each person only knew what they needed to know to do the job properly.  I went to the place where the burial was going to take place to help get everything ready.  The grave was already prepared, just waiting for the right time to receive the coffin.  The cemetery was quiet that afternoon, with only the occasional sound of a car passing on the street outside.

  I enjoyed those minutes before a funeral began.  It was a different kind of silence from the rest of the day.  A silence that allowed time for thought.  Before the real hard work begins. When the procession arrived, I immediately noticed a woman walking in front, being supported by two others.  I didn’t need to ask who it was.

  Her pain spoke for itself.  Her face was marked from crying so much, her eyes red and sunken, and she walked slowly, as if her legs could barely bear the weight of that day.  The priest began the ceremony with the calm of someone who has done this many times in his life.  People positioned themselves around the coffin, most with their heads bowed.

  Some held a handkerchief in their hand, others just stared at the ground.  I stayed a little apart, the way I always did, paying attention to whatever needed to be done.  It was at that moment that I noticed a man approaching from a distance, still outside the group of people gathered.  He was walking slowly, somewhat hesitantly, like someone unsure if he should be there.

  I had absolutely no idea who he was.  I only noticed that his way of arriving was different from the rest of his relatives.  He stopped at a certain distance, without mingling with the others.  He stood there, staring at the coffin with his hands hidden in his pockets.  I kept looking at the work, but every now and then my eyes would return to him, without me being able to explain exactly why, as if something about him caught my attention.

  It was then that the boy’s mother turned her face and saw him.  And what happened next, I will never forget.  She finally let go of the tears she had been holding back since she arrived and began screaming in front of everyone, not caring who was looking at her.  Get out of here, you don’t have that right.  You abandoned us, you abandoned my son, and now you come here pretending you feel something.

Her voice came out so loud that the priest stopped speaking for a moment, unsure what to do.  Some relatives rushed towards her, trying to hold her back, trying to calm that sudden despair that had taken over the entire ceremony in an instant that seemed to last much longer than it actually did.

  She screamed again, her voice almost gone from crying so much.  Go away.  He doesn’t need you.  He never needed to.  The man did n’t answer, didn’t try to explain himself, didn’t take a step forward to get closer, he just lowered his head and stood there for a second, like someone who receives a hard blow and endures it silently, without reacting.

  Then he turned his back and walked away slowly, without looking back, without exchanging a word with anyone.  He disappeared down the path leading to the gate, leaving behind that heavy silence that only exists after a scream of that magnitude.  A silence that seemed to occupy more space than the noise that had come before it.

  I stood there for a moment, not understanding anything that had just happened.  I didn’t know who that man was, nor the real reason for that whole fight, but I felt that it had a different weight than anything else I had ever seen in that cemetery in all the years I had worked there. The ceremony continued after that, but the atmosphere was no longer the same.

People exchanged silent glances, without commenting aloud on what had happened.  I started paying attention to my work again, but inside I carried a strange feeling, as if something there had truly changed , something I couldn’t quite name.  When the time came to lower the coffin into the grave with the ropes , the mother knelt near the edge, crying softly, with the other women of the family beside her, each with a hand on her shoulder, trying to offer some kind of comfort that at that moment seemed impossible.  The

priest recited the final prayer in a calm voice, without rushing any of the words. Gradually, people began to stand up, embracing each other, preparing to leave that place.  I started closing the grave, placing the slab on top as the job required, trying to concentrate only on what my hands needed to do.

  While I was working, that strange feeling didn’t go away.  It seemed like the air there was different, stiller than usual, even after most people had already left.  I tried to focus only on what I needed to do, but I couldn’t forget that scene of the mother yelling at that man whose identity no one had explained.

  The family gradually left the cemetery.  When I finished the job, the place was almost empty.  There was only the silence of the late afternoon and the wind passing between the tombs.  I had already seen many sad families in there, many people fighting over inheritance, old grudges, resentments that were never properly resolved.

But that scene of the mother yelling at that man kept hammering in my head in a different way, without me being able to explain why, as if it had a weight that went beyond a common family fight.  I left that late afternoon, thinking about the scene of the mother screaming and the man walking away with his head down, without imagining for a second that that day was only the beginning of everything that was yet to come.

  The day after the funeral, I went back to work as usual, keeping to my schedule, tending to the graves that needed maintenance, but inside I couldn’t forget that scene.  It was already mid-morning and I was doing some work near the young man’s grave when a visitor entered the cemetery with a dog, something that sometimes happened, since many people went to visit relatives with their pets.

The dog walked along calmly, without any problem, sniffing the ground from time to time, until it reached the grave of the boy we had buried the day before.  That’s when the animal’s behavior changed completely.  He stopped suddenly, ears perked up, his whole body stiff, and began to growl softly, staring intently in the direction of the grave.

  The owner pulled hard on the leash, trying to make him walk in the right direction, but the dog resisted, digging his paws into the ground, refusing to take another step down that path.  The man was completely confused, pulled again with more force, calling out the animal’s name aloud, and the dog only growled louder, almost barking, its back fur standing on end.

  In the end, the visitor gave up and had to take a detour, passing by another row of tombs to be able to continue the tour.  I stood there watching all of that from afar, not knowing what to think.  I tried to find a simple explanation for it, the way we always try to explain strange things with what we already know.  Dogs sometimes get startled by smells, noises, and movements that we don’t even notice properly.

  But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself of that, that scene kept nagging at me for the rest of the morning.  The next day, I arrived early for work, as usual, with the sun still low on the horizon.  Before I even started my shift, the night watchman called me aside to talk, saying he needed to tell me something strange that had happened on his night patrol.

He seemed uncomfortable, unsure how to begin talking about the subject.  He said that around 3 a.m. he had seen a young man walking alone inside the cemetery.  He said he called, but the boy did n’t answer.  He just kept walking slowly between the rows of graves, without any hurry.  The watchman followed him, finding it strange that someone would be there alone in the middle of the night.

  But when he got close, there was no one else in the way.  He searched both sides, between the tombstones, and found no one nearby.  He said it gave him a chill that wouldn’t go away even after the sun had risen.  I asked him exactly where he had seen that boy, just to understand the story better.  He replied that the young man had stopped right in front of Diego Fernandes Costa’s grave, the same boy we had buried two days before, and stood there for a while before the guard went looking for him and found no one else.  It was at

that moment that I began to understand that perhaps it wasn’t just a bunch of separate coincidences, but things connected to the same place, to the same tomb.  I listened silently, feeling a chill run down my neck as he recounted every detail of that early morning. That all came together in my head with what I had felt on the day of the funeral and with the scene of the dog from the previous day, forming a set of circumstances that could no longer be ignored as mere coincidence.  Towards the end of the afternoon,

I was arranging a flower bed when I saw an elderly lady who always appeared at the cemetery almost every week visiting some old relative buried there many years ago.  I had crossed paths with her several times over the years.  That day, she stopped near the boy’s grave.  She stood there in silence for a few seconds, staring intently at the tombstone.

  I continued working nearby, not paying much attention at first, until she turned towards me and said in a calm voice: “There’s something there that hasn’t rested yet.”  She said that and continued on her way through the cemetery, without waiting for a response from me, without explaining anything further about what she had meant.

  I stood there , feeling the weight of that phrase in a way unlike anything I had ever heard before.   It wasn’t a comment from someone who actually knew anything concrete, nor did it seem like a warning from someone who understood spiritual matters or anything of the sort.  It was just a phrase uttered by an ordinary lady who had frequented the place for years.

  But that’s precisely why it weighed so heavily on me, as if it were more true because it didn’t come burdened with any explanation.  I stood there for a long time, looking at the grave, piecing together in my head everything that had happened in those two days.  The dog that refused to go near, the watchman who couldn’t find anyone else after following that boy through the night.

  And now that random comment from the lady.  It was then that I felt a strange urge growing inside me, a feeling that perhaps I could help that soul find some kind of rest.  I couldn’t explain where it came from, nor why I should do anything about a boy I didn’t even really know who he had been in life.

  I left the hoe leaning against the nearest wall and stood there, watching the late afternoon light fall over the cemetery, painting everything a more yellowish color.  I decided I was n’t going to wait another day to do something.  I was going to that grave right now to try and pray for that soul, even without really knowing what I was doing.

  I started walking towards the grave, the sun already low behind the trees outside the wall, letting a fainter light fall on the rows of tombs.  The cemetery was almost empty at that time of day, and the silence seemed denser than usual, as if the whole place was waiting for something to happen there, something I couldn’t yet name.

  There was no one else around at that hour, just the silence, which seemed heavier than usual.  A silence I was already familiar with from other end-of-day periods, but which that day felt different from all the others I had experienced there.  I stopped right in front of the grave, looking at the tombstone, and stood there for a moment, not quite knowing how to begin.

   I had never done anything like it before, praying alone for the repose of someone I didn’t even know in life.  But something inside me told me I needed to try anyway.  I knelt right there on the hard- packed earth, feeling the dampness of the late afternoon rising from the ground, and began to pray softly, silently asking that that soul find the peace that seemed to be missing there.

  I didn’t use any difficult words.  I only spoke in the simplest way I knew how, the way my own mother had taught me to pray when I was just a boy in the countryside.  Right at the beginning of that prayer, I felt a slight anguish in my chest, a tightness that hadn’t come from anywhere, out of nowhere, without explanation.

   I did n’t think much of it at first , thinking it might just be the nerves of doing it alone for the first time.  But as I prayed, that feeling grew gradually, slowly, like the tide rising slowly at the edge of the sea, without us really noticing.  The tightness in my chest grew stronger with each passing minute, and the air around me seemed heavier, as if there was less room to breathe properly inside that patch of cemetery where I was kneeling.

  I continued nonetheless, persisting in prayer, as if something inside me knew I needed to finish this to the end, no matter the cost.  I can’t explain where that urge to continue came from, since my whole body seemed to be telling me to get up and leave as soon as possible, far away from that place that no longer seemed so familiar.

  The anguish reached a point I had never felt before.  It was an almost suffocating weight, a feeling of being surrounded by something I couldn’t see, but which seemed to be very close to me, waiting for something.  to happen at that instant.  My hands suddenly became ice cold.  I realized that my breathing had also changed, becoming shorter and faster, without me having decided to breathe that way.

  But I continued even with all that happening, repeating the same words softly, trying not to let fear take over me at that moment.   It was at that exact moment, at the peak of all that anguish, that I heard footsteps approaching from behind me, coming from somewhere between the rows of graves.

  The sound was clear, just people walking slowly on the dry earth of the path that passed nearby, getting closer and closer to where I was kneeling.  I turned around quickly, my heart already racing in my chest, unsure of what to expect after everything I had felt in those last few minutes alone there.  For a second I even thought it was just another one of those signs that I couldn’t explain, something without any form, but what I saw was very real.

  They were real people standing there.  And that’s when I recognized the man standing a few steps away from me.  The same one I had seen on the day of the funeral, the one the boy’s mother had sent away in front of everyone, without him uttering a single word in response.  I didn’t expect to find him there, much less at that exact moment.

  Right after everything I had just felt, I stood there , still kneeling, not quite knowing how to react to that unexpected presence right there in front of me.  He was the one who broke the silence first, asking in a low voice what I was doing there at that time of day, kneeling right in front of that tomb.

  I took a deep breath before answering, trying to organize in my head everything I needed to tell him.  And I said that since the day of the burial, strange things had been happening near that grave.  Things that I myself couldn’t quite explain, but that had left me restless during those last two days of work, unable to sleep properly, unable to think about anything else .

  I told them about the dog that refused to go through there, resisting with its whole body, and about the watchman’s account, who swore he saw a young man walking in the early morning and then couldn’t find anyone else in the area.  And about the phrase that a lady had told me that same late afternoon, something about a soul that hadn’t yet properly rested in that place.

  He also said that he had come there on his own accord, without anyone ordering or asking him to, because he felt that perhaps he could help that soul find peace, even without fully understanding where that strong desire came from .  I said all this looking at the floor, a little awkwardly, hoping he wouldn’t think I was making things up or exaggerating.

  The man remained silent for a long time after I finished speaking, staring intently at the grave, his eyes already brimming with tears he had been holding back.  Something inside him seemed to be slowly breaking, as if my words had touched a place he had kept locked away for many years, without ever telling anyone.

  He ran his hand over his face, took a couple of deep breaths, and stared at the ground for another moment, as if gathering courage to say something he had been holding back for a long time, perhaps even before that funeral.  I waited silently, without pressuring him, sensing that his silence was also part of what needed to happen there.

  It was then that he took another deep breath, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and began to count.  His voice trembled slightly, but he seemed finally determined to get it all out.  He stood still for another moment, breathing slowly, like someone gathering their last bit of strength to say something difficult to say aloud after being silent for so long.

  Then he looked me straight in the eyes and said that he was Diego’s father .  She said she was very young when her son was born, with no structure whatsoever to raise a child, lacking judgment, and without the responsibility that a real adult man needs to have in life.  He said that at that time he disappeared, leaving Diego’s mother alone with the young boy, and that this was a burden he had carried with him ever since, without ever being able to properly get rid of it.

  Years later, now more mature, with a more organized life and a stable job, he recounted that Diego himself, by then 17 , had sought him out on his own, without his mother knowing anything about it at the beginning .  The two even met a few times in secret, trying to reconstruct something that had been left behind in the boy’s childhood .

  She told him that his mother discovered these secret meetings and, fearing that he would repeat the same abandonment as before, sought legal action and obtained a ruling that stopped those meetings while the boy was still a minor, preventing her from seeing him again until he turned 18.  A short time later, Diego turned 18.  The man made a point of saying, his voice breaking, that he held no grudge against his mother because of all that.

  He said he perfectly understood the reason for that fear, because the real blame for everything lay with him, for having left years before and leaving a wound that never properly healed in both of their lives.  He recounted that it was precisely during that secret reconciliation that he bought a small toy car , intending to give it to his son as a gift as soon as he had the right opportunity, a way to try to recover some of the time he had already lost, but the court’s decision cut off contact before he could give that gift to Diego.  He also said

that in one of their last conversations before the forced separation, Diego told him that as soon as he turned 18 he would look for him again on his own, without having to hide it from anyone else, not from his mother, nor from anyone else in the family, and that he, the father, had been waiting for that day to arrive without being able to do anything but wait in silence.

  It was a cousin of his ex-wife’s family who informed him about the young man’s death. He said that this cousin had found out from other relatives and insisted on personally seeking out his father to tell him the news, even after everything had happened.  The man recounted, his voice growing ever fainter, that Diego had died in a motorcycle accident shortly after turning 18, just when he would finally be free.

  to decide for himself whether he wanted to reconnect with his father, without depending on anyone else for that to actually happen. He said he went to the funeral even though he knew he wouldn’t be well received by anyone there, carrying the regret of years that he had never truly been able to resolve, neither with time nor with distance.

  He said he needed to be there, even if it was just to stand at a distance, watching his own son being buried without being able to get close to his family.  As he recounted all this, his voice growing weaker and weaker, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small, worn-out toy car . He said it was the same little car, the one he had bought years ago, and had kept ever since , waiting for a chance that never really came.

He said that he had come there precisely to leave that toy car at his son’s grave, since he never had the opportunity to deliver it while he was alive, nor the chance for the reunion that Diego himself had promised to take place, as soon as he reached adulthood and could decide for himself, without needing anyone else’s permission .

  He bent down slowly, carefully, and placed the cart on top of the grave, adjusting it with his hand, almost as if he were arranging a belated birthday present, a present that was already too late for anything.  I stood there, saying nothing, just observing that simple gesture, laden with so much time lost between the two of them.

  When he lifted his head again, after carefully adjusting the stroller , I noticed that something had changed in his face.  My gaze was fixed on an empty spot between the neighboring tombstones, a place where I couldn’t see anything at all, just dirt and low vegetation between the graves surrounding that spot.

  He slowly stretched out his hand toward that empty spot, as if he were trying to touch someone standing right there in front of him, just a few steps away.  I looked at the same spot, trying to understand what he saw at that moment, but to me there was absolutely nothing in that empty space in the cemetery.  In a few seconds, he fell to his knees on the hard floor, crying loudly, his whole body trembling like someone who can no longer hold back after keeping it inside for so long.

  He kept repeating the same phrase softly, almost voicelessly, several times in a row.  He forgave me.  He forgave me without explaining anything further to me.  I stood there , not quite knowing what to do, just witnessing that moment that I couldn’t explain at all.  I saw absolutely nothing but the man crying alone in front of the grave, but his certainty seemed too real to be just a figment of someone’s imagination, someone so distraught.

  Gradually, he calmed down, still kneeling on the ground, wiping his wet face with both hands, breathing more calmly with each passing moment.  And it was precisely at that moment that I felt the weight I had been carrying with me since the day of the funeral begin to slowly disappear from within me, as if something important had finally been resolved there.

  In the days that followed that late afternoon, I noticed that the strange signs that had been occurring near that tomb stopped completely, as if they had simply vanished.  No dog found that place strange anymore.  No security guard reported anything else out of the ordinary during their rounds.  And I myself haven’t felt that heavy feeling again on any other workday.

  Today, many years after that day, I still think a lot about what I experienced there inside the cemetery, especially when the subject of forgiveness comes up in conversation.  To this day I can’t say for sure if that man really saw his son standing there in front of me or if it was something else that happened inside him at that intense moment.

  What I know is that the forgiveness he sought somehow reached him , even after so much time, even after so many years of estrangement and regret kept inside his heart, with no one to share that burden with.  And this taught me that it’s never too late for someone to find peace, even when it seems like there’s no way to fix things anymore.

  If you believe that forgiveness exists even after death, that pain held for years can find peace even when it seems too late, leave a comment below: “I believe.”  And I leave you with a request.  If you have someone you’ve distanced yourself from—a child, a parent, a sibling—out of pride, resentment, or fear of taking the first step, don’t wait for too much time to pass.

May God bless you and your family.  And may no one have to wait until it’s too late to ask for forgiveness.