Anticipated Eulogy

I've always loved old graveyards.

A precious one from us has gone, A voice we loved is stilled: A place is vacant in our home, Which never can be filled.

His words were kindness, his deeds were love, His spirit humble, he rests above.

Wandering amid the crooked stones, my feet stumble on the uneven ground, its grass in patches of new, old and overturned. I tread with care and trepidation, never quite sure on this heaped plane what (or rather, whom) my errant foot might disturb. I methodically walk between the graves pausing at each stone to read and ponder the description and see the carefully carved design. Time has tilted many of these monoliths; a century and a half takes its toll. The letters and numbers once carefully etched have been gently eroded: by the sweeping arch of a sprinkler, the cracked and crumbling plaster, and the weathering of an eon outdoors. Moss and mold nearly as old as the stone which they have become attached to, add color the the lifeless cemetery. Occasional flowers add life and mystery to a single lucky grave, and I wonder if the hand that placed them there knew the story behind the name, knew the person beyond the grave.

Most members of this cemetery go unremembered, their stones crumbling into shapeless boulders and their inscriptions long past the hope of being deciphered. Their state is pitiful, to be sure, as their forgotten tombstones outlive any memories of their lives. But there are other graves, their stones still standing in a shade of former glory, their inscriptions cut and clear, still proclaiming a fraction of the story behind the name and date, the life that once was lived. These beautiful epitaphs, composed of little more than 4 rhyming lines sometimes give insight to the life of the body now buried beneath, but always attest one simple fact: that this person was loved. 

Reading these lines of love in praise of those long dead, sends my mind to the future, maybe not far distant. The day when a stone like this will mark my final resting place. In what grassy corner will this mortal frame lay? Will the dates manifest of a long life? Will my name on the tombstone be joined by that of a husband or child? Amid these quiet quandaries, the foremost in my mind is this: What will be my eulogy? 

Which of my qualities will last in stone, long after my mortal elements decay? What tribute to my life will my loved ones pay through the words inscribed on my grave? And who will write them? How long until all I am is a story and a memory.... and how long until even those fade? 

I guess that's why I write. I blog. I journal like a fiend. So that someday, when the timbre of my voice is a bygone memory, I will still live. Some future soul will read these passages that carry elements of my soul, and through my words... I will live again.

And then my mind wanders past the profound and wonders.... How the heck do they instal a sprinkler system in a 150 year old cemetery? Wouldn't you... run into somebody?

 Always a surprise.