I was dropping my daughter off at school this morning and as we pulled away, I drove a few meters down the road and slammed on the brakes.

I don’t know if I’ve ever even noticed that her school was so close to a cemetery before today.  We live in a quiet little village, and like most French villages, you’ll find a school, mayor’s office, boulangerie, church, and usually beside the church; a cemetery.

As the brakes hit the pave, my karaoke session with the French radio station also came to a halt and I pulled over the car in front of the cemetery.

If bystanders were watching, you can guarantee that they were asking each other why the crazy foreign lady, who wasn’t wearing a jacket in November had pulled over her car and was now standing mesmerised in the middle of the village cemetery.

I’ll tell you why.

It’s not that I’m a stranger to cemeteries.  As a kid, every spring my Mom would drag my brothers and I to plant flowers at the graves of relatives that had passed away.  I’m not gonna lie, it freaked me out to have my older brothers chasing me through the cemetery, while I hoped I wasn’t disturbing the people below.  But I digress.

Today I was in awe!  The amount of fresh, bright, beautiful flowers that covered this patch of land was completely impressive!  There wasn’t a single gravestone that wasn’t covered with an immaculate assortment of fresh flowers.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It was the prettiest cemetery I’ve ever come across.

I needed an explanation.  So I did as I always do when I’m thrown, amazed, and shocked by life in France.  I called my husband at work, because I’m sure he’s just dying to know what I get up to during the day.

After rambling incessantly in his ear about how I’m standing amongst all these amazing flowers, he finally manages to squeeze in a couple of puzzled words, “Why the heck are you at a cemetery?”

I explain to him that it looked like a botanical gardens and it caught my eye from the road and so I pulled over the car and starting walking around.  Yes, that’s right; a nice Wednesday morning stroll through the cemetery; as you do.

I asked him to inquire around the office and get to the bottom of this for me.  He agreed and said he’d call me back later.  But I don’t like waiting; so I called my friend and neighbour who unfortunately for me, does not speak a word of English.  While the phone was ringing, I quickly realised that I don’t know the French word for cemetery because thankfully, it doesn’t usually come up in conversation.

This is pretty much how I explained myself to her.

“I’m just across from the school, at the place where the dead people are.  I don’t know the name for it in French.  There are flowers everywhere.  Why?  Who did this?  It’s so pretty this place for the dead people.”

We’re going on 4 years of her being my neighbour, and she doesn’t even break stride at my strange wording.  Like my husband, she is slightly amused that I am randomly calling her from the cemetery.

My neighbour, who has lived her whole life in this village, explains to me that November 1st is La Toussaint, All Saints Day.  It’s a holiday in France, and that much I knew because my husband had the day off.  What I didn’t know was that French people pay tribute to their relatives and loved ones that have passed away by visiting the cemetery and doing it up right!!!  I’m talking not a grave was missed.  Flowers flooded the headstones, a traditional favourite being chrysanthemums.

When I heard back from my husband we confirmed that our stories matched; every year the French deck out the cemeteries on November 1st.  Which led me to my next question, “Think they’d let me be buried here?”

I could feel my husband rolling his eyes through the phone, but in all seriousness, you’ve got to hand it to the French.  Once again, they don’t mess around!  They unfailingly stick to tradition and leave foreigners like myself in disbelieving amazement.

It was easily the loveliest cemetery I’ve set eyes on.  If there was a cemetery that was decked out in diamonds, stilettos, and a glass of champagne in hand; this was it!  And for the first time ever, I wished that this place ‘where dead people were buried’ was in my backyard.