I found myself near the old neighborhood with a little time to kill. Perhaps feeling the nearness of Halloween, I opted to stop by the local cemetery.
Having walked my dog there in the past, it was familiar ground. It is also the final resting place of some people I had known, including former co-workers, neighbors, and grandparents-in-law.
I found myself near the old neighborhood with a little time to kill. Perhaps feeling the nearness of Halloween, I opted to stop by the local cemetery.
Having walked my dog there in the past, it was familiar ground. It is also the final resting place of some people I had known, including former co-workers, neighbors, and grandparents-in-law.
Paying my respects here and there, I paused to look around. This graveyard dates back to before the Civil War, so there are markers for decedents who were born in the 18th century. Monuments tumble down sloping hills and across meadows strewn with leaves from tall, mature trees.
The markers come in styles and shapes reflecting both the burial custom of the times and the family pocketbooks of the deceased. Stones simple and ornate protrude from the ground straight or crookedly, depending on the capriciousness of time. Sepulchers stand locked and foreboding, while obelisks and pillars point skyward, some topped with carved crosses, busts, angels, urns, finials, and other decorative elements. Most poignant are cherub statues atop the markers of babies.
The larger memorials are often the centerpiece of family clusters; here the sandstone, marble, granite, or limestone is engraved with names and dates, as well as titles of those in repose there – Mother, Father, Beloved Daughter, Son, Wife, or Husband. Comparing the numbers inscribed in family plots, one notes plenty of children who saw very few birthdays, as well as spouses who lived another lifetime compared to their partners.
Many of the inscriptions are ancient enough to be worn and illegible. Some stones are pocked and stained by acid rain, others are obscured by lichen spreading over their surfaces with time, still others are broken or overturned, their dead ones no longer identified for passersby. But they are all there, announcing a community of the dead amid a city of the living.
The funeral industry is trying to adapt to a trend away from burial. Cremations are more popular, and many families choose not to have their loved ones’ ashes interred. Losing a substantial service like that, the industry makes less money.
But is it possible a large portion of our society doesn’t lose something, too? Even though the dead are not truly present there, cemeteries were for a long time an important location in American culture. Loved ones would have picnics in honor of their deceased one’s memory. Graves were lovingly tended, with dirt and soot scrubbed away and flowers planted throughout the year. The plots of veterans were noted with flags at each commemoration of war.
What is more, cemeteries were a place to pause and reflect on the lives of those gone on, as well as our own. Those who founded settlements or carried on through hard times were remembered solemnly, saluted for the foundations built for those who came after, and held up as examples to the ones who continued in their stead.
Memorials now are often a video tribute or a reflection posted online; mantles, closets, or shelves end up being where someone’s cremains “rest in peace.” I wonder if we miss out in not having a common site to sit a while, pondering whispers from our shared past.
Pat Grimes, a former South Bay resident, writes from Ypsilanti, Mich. He can be reached at pgwriter@inbox.com
