5/31/05 Grave conversations
Grave conversations
May 30, 2005
A VISIT to a cemetery is just that -- a visit. A person drives through the iron gates, or walks up the hill, to pay a call on loved ones, on the past, and on the most private places of the heart.
Today Americans will make those visits by the thousands, honoring the fallen soldier in national commemoration and continuing what can feel like a conversation with family and friends whose names are carved in stone.
Chances are the visitor won't be able to resist saying ''Hi" out loud to those stones, and might relate some bit of family news in a whisper, or describe the flowers being placed just so on the ground.
There might be a lot more than a simple bouquet or flag on the grave, for visitors often fashion a plot into a tiny shrine, featuring photographs in protective plastic showing weddings, graduations, and vacation trips.
Nicknames carved in hearts, teddy bears, statues of pets, Red Sox banners, wind chimes, bird feeders, even balloons make the modern resting place far more cheerful than the stern ''Here lies the body of..." plots in centuries-old graveyards such as Boston's Granary Burying Ground.
Cemeteries were not places to visit back in 1660, when tending the dead was a far more utilitarian business, and headstones featured carvings of skulls. Placing a child's doll at a tomb, or tacking up a sign reading ''Angel on Guard," would have been beyond bizarre -- and engaging in conversation might have had a person hanged as a witch.
More-enlightened thinking evolved in the 1800s, most exquisitely in the creation of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, which has ever been just the right spot for a quiet chat, and where strollers and bird watchers share the space comfortably with visitors to graves.
A person can often feel surrounded by life in a cemetery, even if alone. The paths invite one to walk through landscaping tended by expert hands, and the glimpses into the stories of strangers can make them seem more like friends. A headstone with a beach chair carved into it, another with a drawing of a horse jumping a fence, and a bench inscribed with the Yogi Berra quotation ''The future ain't what it used to be" all give one a sense of the personalities resting amid grand trees and perfect grass.
One counts the years between the dates on each stone, cheering the people who made it into their 90s and feeling the weight of the loss of a child. Nobody ever knows how much time there is, and the stones whisper that one must use it well. But they also quiet the mind, for a walk in a cemetery -- were birds are loud and traffic noise distant -- is a bridge between the temporal and the timeless.
May 30, 2005
A VISIT to a cemetery is just that -- a visit. A person drives through the iron gates, or walks up the hill, to pay a call on loved ones, on the past, and on the most private places of the heart.
Today Americans will make those visits by the thousands, honoring the fallen soldier in national commemoration and continuing what can feel like a conversation with family and friends whose names are carved in stone.
Chances are the visitor won't be able to resist saying ''Hi" out loud to those stones, and might relate some bit of family news in a whisper, or describe the flowers being placed just so on the ground.
There might be a lot more than a simple bouquet or flag on the grave, for visitors often fashion a plot into a tiny shrine, featuring photographs in protective plastic showing weddings, graduations, and vacation trips.
Nicknames carved in hearts, teddy bears, statues of pets, Red Sox banners, wind chimes, bird feeders, even balloons make the modern resting place far more cheerful than the stern ''Here lies the body of..." plots in centuries-old graveyards such as Boston's Granary Burying Ground.
Cemeteries were not places to visit back in 1660, when tending the dead was a far more utilitarian business, and headstones featured carvings of skulls. Placing a child's doll at a tomb, or tacking up a sign reading ''Angel on Guard," would have been beyond bizarre -- and engaging in conversation might have had a person hanged as a witch.
More-enlightened thinking evolved in the 1800s, most exquisitely in the creation of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, which has ever been just the right spot for a quiet chat, and where strollers and bird watchers share the space comfortably with visitors to graves.
A person can often feel surrounded by life in a cemetery, even if alone. The paths invite one to walk through landscaping tended by expert hands, and the glimpses into the stories of strangers can make them seem more like friends. A headstone with a beach chair carved into it, another with a drawing of a horse jumping a fence, and a bench inscribed with the Yogi Berra quotation ''The future ain't what it used to be" all give one a sense of the personalities resting amid grand trees and perfect grass.
One counts the years between the dates on each stone, cheering the people who made it into their 90s and feeling the weight of the loss of a child. Nobody ever knows how much time there is, and the stones whisper that one must use it well. But they also quiet the mind, for a walk in a cemetery -- were birds are loud and traffic noise distant -- is a bridge between the temporal and the timeless.
posted by Aestrea Raven at Tuesday, May 31, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home