EX-COVEIROA CONTA: MÃE DESESPERADA AJOELHOU-SE À BEIRA DA SEPULTURA E SUSSURROU 

EX-COVEIROA CONTA: MÃE DESESPERADA AJOELHOU-SE À BEIRA DA SEPULTURA E SUSSURROU

I worked as a gravedigger at the municipal cemetery in Porto Velho for 6 years. During all that time, my colleagues kept telling me about that place.  For me, everything had an explanation.  But in 1991 I attended the funeral of a young woman named Cristiane [clearing throat] Almeida Rocha.

  As I was closing that grave, I heard her mother whisper a phrase that has never left my head.  And it was at that moment that I felt, for the first time in my years of work, something I’ve never been able to explain.  My name is Aparecido Alves da Silva.  I am 69 years old and this is my story in minutes.

  The atmosphere that day was heavy, as it often is when young people die.  There were suppressed tears, downcast eyes, that silence of someone who doesn’t quite know what to say to the other person.  I had seen that so many times throughout my career that I did n’t pay that much attention anymore.   It was just another day on the job for me, like so many others I had already done in that same place.

  The priest conducted the ceremony slowly, with his usual words of comfort. I stood watching from a distance, as I always did, next to another employee who had worked with me for many years at that cemetery.  We always stayed quiet during that part, just waiting for the right moment to step in , without disrupting the other people’s ceremony.

  When the time came to lower the coffin, I approached, carefully gripped my end of the rope, looking at the ground, thinking only about doing it right, without mistakes and without rushing.  It was at that very moment, as the coffin began to slowly descend into the grave, that the girl’s mother let out a cry of pain.  It wasn’t a cry of clear words, it was more of a pure despair that escaped her uncontrollably, repeating: “My daughter, my daughter.

”  Several times in a row, as if those words could bring her daughter back to earth, back to her again.  The priest and relatives rushed to help her, and she nearly fell to her knees right there near the open grave. They held her by the arms, trying to calm her down as best they could.  The ceremony continued after that, but in a more subdued, quieter manner.

  Little by little , the family said their goodbyes and left the cemetery.  Each in their own way, some crying softly, others just walking silently, looking at the ground. Her mother stood alone for a moment longer , standing in front of the still-open grave, as if she couldn’t bring herself to leave .

  Before leaving, she bent down close to the ground and whispered something, almost to herself.  I shouldn’t have heard that, but I did because I was nearby, getting the things I would need to close the grave.  She said, “Who did this to you, my daughter?”  “Who?” Repeating softly in a tone that mixed pain with anger, I stood still for a moment, not knowing what to make of what I had just heard from her.

  It was there, hearing that question, that I felt for the first time in that cemetery a shiver unlike anything I had ever felt before.  It was a chill that quickly swept through my entire body, without me quite understanding where it had come from, or why it had come in that particular place .  I stood there, shovel in hand, unable to move properly for a few seconds, as if my body had frozen on its own.

  I had never experienced anything like it before and didn’t even know how to react to it properly.  I just stood there staring at the ground, waiting for that strange feeling to go away the way it had come.  The other employee who worked with me noticed my face change immediately.  He looked at me seriously, with that look of someone who had also felt something similar, but neither of us said anything at that moment.

  We only exchanged a quick glance and went back to doing what needed to be done there, each in our own way, without saying anything to each other. The mother slowly got up and left, supported by a relative who came to pick her up.  So, I finished closing the grave by myself, because the other employee had gone to take care of something else .

  And that’s when I noticed something strange.  The place was quieter than usual, a silence unlike anything I had ever noticed there before .  There was no wind, no birds singing, nothing.  It was a heavy silence, unlike any other funeral I had conducted in that cemetery.  I tried to explain it in the simplest way I could think of. I thought it was because of the heavy scene I had just seen, the scream of that mother still echoing in my head.

  But deep down I knew I’d never felt that way after any other job.  When the other employee returned, he commented to me seriously that that tomb over there wasn’t going to be one of the peaceful ones.  I laughed when he said that and told him it was just his imagination, that cemeteries mess with anyone’s head, and that we shouldn’t listen to that kind of thing after so many years in that job.

  But inside, this time I wasn’t so sure what I was saying to him.  I left that cemetery that day, unable to forget that mother’s words, nor the shiver I felt when I heard her speak.  That was the first day I took something from that place home with me, inside my head, and couldn’t get it out.  I didn’t know it yet, but that funeral of Cristiane Almeida Rocha, 29 years old, was going to change a certainty I had carried since I started that job.

  The day after the funeral, I arrived at the cemetery at my usual time and went straight to the staff room, where we usually gathered before starting the day’s work .  Inside, I found the night watchman, who was finishing his shift and waiting to go home to rest after a full night of work.  We exchanged a quick greeting, as usual, while I left my bag near the door.

  He looked a little different that morning, kind of awkward, drinking the coffee he always had before heading home after his shift.  As soon as he saw me, he commented that he’d had a strange night near the new tomb, the same one I had closed the day before.  I noticed he was quieter than usual, lacking his usual playful demeanor.

  He swore he heard a strange sound coming from that direction around 3 in the morning, a sound he couldn’t quite explain .  He said that he went there with a flashlight in his hand, alone in the darkness, but found absolutely nothing out of place and no sign of anyone nearby.  I told him he should go to bed earlier before his shift, because being in a cemetery in the early hours of the morning really messes with the head of someone who’s alone there for so many hours in a row, every single day.  But deep down, without admitting

it to anyone, I knew that the feeling from the previous day hadn’t truly gone away.  That shiver I felt at the funeral still clung to me, even though I tried to hide it in front of others.  who had already forgotten about the matter and gone on with her normal life.  I continued with the day’s work, doing the tasks that needed to be done.

  During the afternoon, I ended up doing a simple repair on a tomb that was very close to Cristiane’s.  The sun was strong and the cemetery had few visitors at that time of day.  While I was working there, I noticed a lady visiting a grave that was a little further on.  She was slowly arranging flowers when suddenly, without any warning, she stumbled backward and fell unconscious right there on the ground, among the graves in that area of ​​the cemetery.

  I dropped everything I was doing and ran to help her.  I called her name a few times, but she didn’t answer, which worried me even more at that moment.  When she regained consciousness, still somewhat disoriented, I carefully lifted her and sat her on a nearby stone bench, then ran to get my water bottle. Still somewhat disoriented, she drank some water and stared at the floor for a while before she was able to speak properly to me.

  She said, her voice still weak, that this had never happened to her before.  He said that moments before fainting he had heard a whisper very close to her ear, without being able to tell where it was coming from or what it was saying.  He said he felt a sharp pressure in his chest soon after, along with sudden shortness of breath.

  And that’s when everything went black, without even time to grab onto anything nearby at that moment.  I listened to her account in silence, unsure of what to say to her at such a delicate moment, still thinking about everything she had just told me about what she felt.  It was then that, unintentionally, I looked to the side and saw that Cristiane’s grave was right there near where we were, just a few steps from that stone bench where she used to sit.

At that moment I felt that same chill again that I had felt on the day of the funeral, only this time much stronger than the first time.  It was a sensation that spread throughout my entire body, different from the quick chill I’d felt before, heavier, as if it would take longer to completely pass .

  I stayed there a little longer, to make sure she was well enough to go back home on her own, even though I was still a little worried about her condition after everything that had happened.  She thanked him profusely, still somewhat shaken by what had happened, and left.  The rest of the afternoon passed peacefully, although I couldn’t get that scene out of my head as I continued working in other areas of the cemetery, trying to maintain a normal routine.

  Around 6 PM, almost time to close the gates to the public, a colleague of mine ran into the staff room with a look of fright on his face that I had never seen on him before.  He said he had seen a young woman standing in front of a tomb.  He went there to let them know that the shift was ending, without imagining what was about to happen.

  When he got close to where he had seen the girl, there was no one else in that place.  There was no sign that anyone had been there.  He recounted it with a slightly choked voice, still trying to process what had happened with his own eyes minutes before, unsure of what to think about it.  I still tried to tease him a little and jokingly asked him in front of which grave he had seen the girl standing that late afternoon.

  He replied without much thought that it was the grave of the girl I had buried the day before. Hearing that, I felt my leg tremble in a way I had never felt before.  It was there, at that moment, standing near the staff room, that I first felt that something real was happening to me and that this wasn’t just anyone’s imagination.

  The next day, I went back to my normal work, doing the necessary tasks at the cemetery, but I noticed that, without even realizing it, I was avoiding passing near Cristiane’s grave, taking a longer route whenever I needed to go from one side of that area of ​​the cemetery to the other.  The morning passed peacefully, with nothing out of the ordinary happening.

  And I almost managed to forget a little of what I had experienced [clearing throat] the day before. But towards the end of the afternoon I received a job that needed to be done precisely in that area.  A simple repair to a gravestone that had cracked, a common occurrence in that type of damp soil.   There was no way to escape it.

  It was part of my job and I needed to go there to sort it out.  Along the way, I tried to convince myself that everything I had felt was just in my head, my imagination after hearing so many strange stories in that cemetery.  The closer I got to that area, the heavier the air around me became, without any explanation to justify what I was feeling at that moment.

   It was n’t too hot that late afternoon, nor were there any dark clouds in the sky. But even so, the air felt different nearby.  It was difficult to even breathe properly in that part of the cemetery, something that had never happened before. I approached Cristiane’s grave and noticed that almost all the flowers left there on the day of the funeral were already dead, completely withered.

  Even though it only took two days.  since they had been placed in that spot.  I found it strange because flowers of that type usually last much longer.  I tried not to give that detail too much importance and concentrate on the work I had gone there to do.  I grabbed my tools and started working, trying to ignore any strange feelings.

  The sound of the hammer hitting the stone helped to distract my mind a little, but even so, it was as if a part of me remained alert, expecting something to happen at any moment near me.  That’s when I felt like someone was very close to me, watching my every move.   It wasn’t a shiver or a cold like before.

  It was more like a weight coming from somewhere I couldn’t quite identify, a presence I couldn’t explain at all. That feeling grew stronger as the minutes passed, as if it were getting closer and closer.  I tried to continue, but my concentration was no longer the same as before all of this started happening.  I stopped what I was doing and looked around carefully, trying to find someone who might be nearby, a visitor or another cemetery employee working in that area.

  But there was nobody around at that time of day.  The place was completely empty around me, just me and those tombs in total silence, without any noise in the distance. Even after confirming that he was alone, the feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away at all.  It remained there, clinging to me, even after I had looked in every possible direction, several times in a row, in that empty place.

   I tried to work again, but my hands were starting to shake.  I stood there, breathing deeply, trying to understand where this feeling I was experiencing so intensely and so closely could be coming from .  There wasn’t a sound of any animals nearby, not a single leaf falling, nothing that could explain that weight I felt clinging to me at the end of that afternoon, so quiet and so empty of people, with no one around to share it with.

Suddenly, a strong, sudden wind passed right over Cristiane’s grave .  I dropped the tool immediately, without even thinking about what I was doing, and walked quickly away from that place, unable to hide the shock I had experienced with everything that had happened to me. My heart was racing and all I could think about was getting out of there as quickly as possible.

  I arrived where a colleague who had worked with me that day was, still with labored breathing and my legs a little shaky.  He asked what had happened to me, and I couldn’t deny it, nor could I invent any excuse to disguise what I had felt.  He brought me a glass of water and waited for me to calm down a bit before continuing to ask questions.

  It took me a few minutes to put the words together properly to recount everything that had happened in that area of ​​the cemetery minutes before that.  I told him everything that had happened.  He listened attentively, without laughing or doubting anything I was saying at that moment, which was quite different from how I myself used to deal with this type of subject with my colleagues over the years.

  It was while telling that story to my colleague that I first admitted aloud that perhaps others had always been right about those stories I had mocked so much over the years in that cemetery.  Something was really happening there, and I could no longer pretend to myself that I wasn’t feeling anything.

  And before I could try to explain anything, he calmly commented that I had never believed those stories because I had never really worried about any of them before.  He said it was easy to laugh at something you’d never experienced firsthand, and that now maybe I understood better what others had always tried to explain to me.

That affected me in a different way, because it was true.  I had always heard those stories from afar, without ever having experienced anything like it before.  I stayed quiet, letting him continue his explanation without interrupting. And calmly he explained that, in his view, some people cannot rest after they die because they remain trapped by something that happened—an injustice, guilt, something that was never resolved while they were alive.

  He said that with the calmness of someone who had thought a lot about the subject over so many years of working there.   He went on to say that this kind of thing does n’t happen.  With everyone who dies, it only happens in specific cases, when there is something left unresolved that the person was unable to resolve before departing from this life to another.

  He said that when this happens, sometimes these people show up somehow to try to comfort those who are left behind or to leave some kind of pending message, never to harm anyone who was near them.  He said that while looking seriously at me, as if he wanted to make it perfectly clear that it wasn’t a reason for fear, but rather for genuine respect and care.

  I pondered those words for a while, trying to understand exactly what he meant by everything he had said. I asked, still feeling somewhat unsure, if he thought that was really what was happening to me, if that was what I had been feeling since that young woman’s funeral.  My voice came out a little weak when I asked that question, because part of me was still afraid of the answer he might give.

  Then he replied that he wasn’t absolutely sure of anything, but that the signs I was describing seemed quite similar to the kind of situation he had seen happen before in that cemetery.  My colleague added that not everyone can feel that kind of thing, even working in a place like that. He said that maybe I had been chosen in some way that he himself couldn’t quite explain, perhaps to earn more respect and to truly believe in all that I had always mocked.

  His words kept echoing in my head after he finished talking to me.  I remained silent, unsure of what to say, processing everything he had just told me about trapped souls and unspoken signs that remain in this world after death.  Inside, I felt that it all made sense with everything I had experienced in the last few days, even though I couldn’t quite explain why I had that strong feeling that things were slowly falling into place, one by one.

   I slowly got up from my chair and thanked them for the conversation.  I left there still a little shaken and went to do a rounds before leaving, checking if there were any late visitors before closing the cemetery gates to the public visiting that late afternoon. I noticed someone standing very close to Cristiane’s grave.

  I approached slowly, and that’s when I recognized the woman standing there in front of the tombstone.  It was her mother, the same lady I had seen on the day of the funeral.  She stood there, quiet, staring at the gravestone.  I approached respectfully, careful not to intrude on that moment, walking slowly and making noise on purpose so she would notice my presence without being suddenly startled.

  When she finally noticed I was there, I offered my condolences and told her that I was the one who took care of her daughter’s burial on that very difficult day for the family.  She looked at me intently, as if she were trying to remember my face.  So I asked carefully, trying not to seem intrusive about what had happened to the young woman.

  My mother was silent for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to tell that story to a stranger. Then she recounted that Cristiane’s body had been found in the river that ran through the city and that, up to that point, the culprit had not yet been found by the local police in charge of the case.  He said that with a choked but firm voice, as if he had already repeated that information several times to other people before me.

   I remained silent, listening to all that, trying to imagine the magnitude of the pain of losing a daughter in such a sudden and cruel way, without even having a clear answer about what had really happened to her. She continued looking at the gravestone as she spoke, as if she were also conversing with her own daughter who was there .

  I commented without thinking properly before saying that it must have been a very serious accident, trying in some way to console her with the simplest and most direct explanation possible at that moment.  The mother shook her head slowly, a serious expression on her face, and said firmly, looking deep into my eyes: “I don’t believe it was an accident.

” I remained silent after that sentence, unsure of what to say, and she continued speaking, now in more detail, about what she herself suspected regarding that strange and poorly explained death.  She said she had always been suspicious of her daughter’s husband, a young man who had been very jealous of Cristiane since the beginning of their relationship, years before all of this happened .

  She said that the two had had a terrible fight days before her death, a fight so serious that the daughter even spent a few days at her mother’s house, but then ended up going back to live with her husband again.  Her voice trembled slightly as she told me that part of the story during that difficult moment.  She stopped talking for a moment, taking a deep breath, as if that memory still lingered as much as the day she learned of her daughter’s death, forever and irreversibly.

  I remained quiet, waiting for her to bring up the subject again in her own time, without pressing her with untimely questions .  She revealed that the police had been investigating the husband since the beginning of that complicated case, but up to that point had not been able to find concrete evidence showing that he was responsible for their daughter’s death.

Even without any proof, she said she was absolutely certain that the boy knew something about everything that had happened.  I listened to it all in silence, feeling the weight of each word fitting perfectly with everything I had experienced in the last few days in that cemetery.  I also remembered what my colleague had explained to me about souls trapped by injustice.

  Without being able to properly explain why I was doing it, I carefully told her that I myself had felt something different near that grave ever since the day of her daughter’s funeral, without stopping.  The mother looked at me with an expression that mixed surprise with some kind of quiet, calm understanding at that moment.

  She didn’t seem scared, nor did she doubt anything I had just told her.  On the contrary, she even seemed relieved to hear that, as if she had been expecting something like that.  She remained silent for a moment after hearing what I had told her, looking at me as if she were weighing every word I had spoken to her at that serious and important moment.

  Then, without saying anything more, she slowly bent down and knelt carefully before her daughter’s gravestone, and remained there praying softly for a while, with her hands clasped and her head bowed, in a silence that I respected, without interrupting for a single second of that intimate moment between her and her daughter.

  When he finished, he stood up slowly, thanked me for stopping to talk, said goodbye, and slowly walked away.  I stood there alone, watching her walk away down the main path of the cemetery, still processing everything that had just happened in that conversation, which was too intense for me.  The sun was already setting on the horizon, painting the sky orange.

  After that day, I never again doubted any story told by my coworkers or anyone else about the supernatural. I began praying for Cristiane’s soul whenever I passed by her grave, asking that she find peace and that justice would finally be served in her case someday.  Today, at 69 years old, I believe that the spiritual world exists.

  I learned that you can’t doubt everything you don’t understand, only respect that which is beyond our human comprehension.  If you’ve also doubted stories like this before, but now feel that maybe there’s something we ca n’t explain, leave an “I believe” in the comments.  And if you’ve ever had an experience that you never quite understood, tell us about it below.

I really want to read your story.  May God bless and protect you all.  May those who are still waiting for justice find peace.  And let’s never forget to respect that which we cannot understand.