Graveyards, the serenity, nature, reverence, and headstones that share their history have always fascinated me. I love the 17th century New England ones, the ones that embrace my family, the war cemeteries of Normandy, and the ancient burial grounds of Europe.
With this self-isolating and remote learning, the one thing I still have is my daily walk. Fortunately, for me I have a great neighborhood and graveyard to walk in, even as I appropriately self distance. One lap around the outer loop through the butterfly garden, past the pond is just right. The things I love most about the graveyard, in the blossoming spring, is the stillness, the bird song, basking turtles, and the fishing herons on the pond.
During this “pandemic” I also have a greater appreciation of the headstones, both modern and ancient. I look at the marker of two little girls, born on the same date, both passing days apart in the fall of 1918, I surmise maybe from the “Spanish Flu.” Another marks the life of a gentleman, born in one century (1859) dying in another (1954). What he must have witnessed traversing a century, experiencing reports of Civil War battles as a child, then possibly waving his son off to the First World War and then a grandson to the second. Those are just snippets of his life which I surmise only because he lived through so many world events. However, he also possibly had siblings, worked, had a talent, witnessed major life changing inventions like the car, television, man’s flight.
There are the Civil War graves, the Freemasons, the families that have clearly come from Asia and Europe. They all have stories. Some experienced unforeseen odds to leave their homelands and come to America. Others lived a quiet life, getting up each day, marking special moments, welcoming new family members. A few were plunged into the spotlight because of their talent, their unusual beliefs or because they didn’t conform. They were parents, children, siblings, artists, writers, martyrs, and victims of the incomprehensible.
Even now as we live in these unfathomable times, of quarantines, remote working, and possibly judging others and their decisions, we are actually not experiencing anything other generations haven’t faced. Their crisis might have had a different name, was isolated to a place or specific time, impacted them because of their religion, beliefs or lifestyles. However, they were affected just as we are now. Yet again the world is just illustrating that we are all the same, despite our differences, which really should make us kinder, more thoughtful human beings. As we post to Facebook so this time will pop up in our “memories,” I would challenge you to “just remember”.
Recall that is was a time that we reached out to each other, used social media to bolster our spirits, smiled at neighbors, we may never have acknowledged before. We learned to judge what we needed, versus what we just wanted. So hold onto to that feeling, continue to be kinder, supportive and more aware. This crisis too, will pass, and we will move on with our lives like the people represented by the gravestones. Hopefully this time, more of us will do things better, so that we won’t contribute to another crisis in the future. Be safe! Be well!
