The History Behind a Tombstone

Previously enjoyed – August 2023

February 2023 was my son’s last reading week as he was set to graduate, I took one day off just to spend with him and he declared that he would like to offer that I choose the adventure, but then he realized my choice would be antique markets and cemeteries, so he thought again. It’s true, I do like cemeteries, I like history and family trees and cemeteries have a lot to offer. Every now and then my google pictures makes a collage for me with a wonderful title like- July day or summer fun and inevitably there will be some shots of flowers, family, pets, and a few tombstones. It always makes me laugh at the mash up of things I want to take a photo of. Right in the middle of captured joyful moments are these stone markers of lives lived. Tombstones do reflect that a life ended, but also mark where a person rests that lived on this earth for a period of time. A person that had dreams, was challenged, had joy, and experienced storms of different kinds. I guess while I do not plan to frame any of these masterpieces the collage does reflect how I spent some time. It’s a tricky thing balancing living with the end of life, balancing joy with sorrow, knowing that we need each to truly have a full life and to completely live with an understanding of all the colours of lives. There are a lot of tombstones in our lives, the ends of things, the paths not taken, the people lost, the job changes and relationships changed or ended. At the end of all that there is this mix, flowers of joy, people that made the sunset brighter and clouds to help us know that while we live, we face it all.