Seduced by all this luxury, I almost forgot why Sofia was a planned stop: to find the eternal mortal resting place of Marion Jack, a Canadian pioneer well known from Baha'i history.
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| photo credit: Bahai World News Service |
The first challenge was to decipher "NW corner". Although it's a square, the cemetery is rotated almost 45 degrees off the compass rose, so it has a N corner or a W corner, but not really both. And after I entered, its magnitude made me lose hope. A sea of stones in all directions. I found an area with english names but it had a huge wall around it. I actually climbed the wall and considered climbing down on the inside, but feared the guards I saw at the main cemetery gate, and thought that Bulgarian prisons are probably nasty. Then I saw a worker sweeping nearby. I climbed down, half worried he'd reprimand me. I tried to ask him if he knew of a British military cemetery, but we shared no words from each other's languages. So all we had to go by were physical gestures. I think I'm usually good at expressing and reading these, but one major obstacle made it almost impossible to understand each other: Bulgarians actually shake their heads to express "yes"! I think I had heard this years before, but I recognized it here suddenly when I saw him shaking his head and saying "da, da" which is also "yes, yes" in Russian. Then I realized that I couldn't trust anything I thought I understood from the last five minutes of our mime session! I acted out an airplane, a military salute, and a machine gun, and he seemed excited to finally catch one concept from me. He motioned to follow him. Progress, finally! Then he somehow conveyed that he should get some money for his trouble. I was so relieved that we were getting somewhere, so I gave him most of my Bulgarian money which amounted to about $3. He was disappointed and tried to get more but I had no choice and stayed firm. We crossed a great distance through this massive grave world, he on his bike and me power-walking beside him. He offered for me to climb on his bike somehow, but on that old clunker it seemed an impossible feat. After 10 or 15 minutes he stopped and with a big grin, he flung his arms up triumphantly in the direction of a gated grave area. He presented what was immediately apparent to me to be the Russian pilot's cemetery. My throat constricted, the background receded behind me like in a horror film when the victim suddenly realizes things are not as they seemed, and I felt like weeping with utter defeat. Although almost paralyzed with despondency, I tried to hide my disappointment and renewed hopelessness; so I tried to thank him and sent him on his way.
I now had about half an hour before catching a tram back to my hotel to check out, and avoid paying a late fee, probably 100 euros for an extra night, a staggering contrast to the 5 euro mistake I scored last night! And I had to leave for Turkey that day anyway, probably soon. I had yet to research the train schedules. So I power-walked back towards the corner where I started, and begged the forces above to help guide me in the right direction. Perhaps they already had? Was I originally in the right place when I decided to ask that worker for help? On my way back, I saw another separated area, but this time the wall was only belly-button height, and it had a gate with no lock. Lots of small identical grave stones hinted that it could be military. I went in, took a few steps, and saw two very tall stones that really stood out. I heard that Marion Jack's grave is dignified, and I assumed distinct. But the inscriptions said they were some type of general memorials. It was about time to go. Depressed at the time lost in vain on this apparently hopeless mission, and submitting to failure, I turned to leave.
In front of me stood a grey granite headstone about 3 or 4 feet wide and not as tall, over a tidy grave adorned with green and red sedum. I walked right past it on my way in, but would've only seen it from the back. Suddenly, my eye caught an unmistakable carved symbol, painted gold: a nine pointed star, and at the bottom of a long quote it was signed "Shoghi". As my eyes fixed on "Marion Jack" inscribed also in gold at the top, they filled with tears and my knees buckled. My forehead rested on the dewy grass and, as I clutched it in both hands, I whispered "Ya Baha'u'l-Abha!"
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| Photo credit: Bahai World News Service |
Shoghi Effendi had said that some day travelers from around the world would visit her grave and draw inspiration from it. I felt suddenly as if a prophesy had just been fulfilled. I was filled with a joy due to my sudden turn from hopelessness to great accomplishment. When I regained my composure, I knelt by her grave and offered a few prayers. Then feeling uneasy about having no flowers to offer, I found a cedar tree and snapped off a small clump to adorn her stone. I took some photos and then thanked God for the bounty of finding her grave, and for the new feeling it gave my soul: it was uplifted, and it felt truly grateful for existing in my physical body, on this mortal plane.
"Immortal heroine... Greatly loved and deeply admired by 'Abdu'l-Baha. A shining example to pioneers... Her unremitting, highly meritorious activities... shed imperishable splendor on contemporary Baha'i history..." Shoghi
See also the Baha'i World News Service article entitled: "Baha'i group pays homage to a heroine"
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