Walking through Toronto’s St. James’s Cemetery is like moving through time

first person

First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide .

I have long been fascinated with cemeteries. Over the years I have wandered about in rural and urban cemeteries, graveyards, churchyards and burial grounds. In Toronto, St. James Cemetery and Crematorium is a mere 400 metres from my front door. It is a place I visit often.

There is a satisfying ambiguity to St. James that draws me through its Parliament Street gates. It is a place of dignity, sorrow and tranquillity, yet a place of words, architecture and stories all in one beautiful natural park-like setting. Every visit is a discovery of something new about Toronto, its history, about our relationship to death and, ultimately, something ab