Cemetery Outing

Since not all of you thought I was completely odd to admit to liking cemeteries, I decided to share a few photos from our outing from last week. I really enjoy looking at the various types of stones and the art and messages on them.

There are always lots of stones with military information on them. Many in our cemetery are from World War I.

Here's something I found really interesting: Parents of Tommy. Makes me wonder why they chose to identify themselves this way.

I love the art on this head stone. A lot of grave stones have Bible verses on them, and I see many of the same verses used again and again. I find it interesting to see the non-religious choices that go onto some stones. This one I particularly liked:

"Yet tho they smile be lost to sight to memory thou art dear."

These are the stones that always get to me. Little Larry Lemay only lived for 7 months. "A little time on earth he spent till God for him His angels sent." My heart always aches for the parents....

I saw this stone while driving out of the cemetery and was so struck by it that I had to stop and get a photo. The awesome wording on this side says:

The true gentleman is the man
whose conduct proceeds from
good will and an acute sense of propriety
and whose self control is equal to all emergencies;
who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty,
the obscure man of his obscurity,
or any man of his inferiority or deformity;
who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another;
who does not flatter wealth,
cringe before power,
or boast of his own possessions or achievments,
who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy;
whose deed follows his word,
who thinks of the rights and feelings of others rather than his own
and who appears well in any company;
a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.



Here are the three littlest boys trying to feed the ducks and geese (whom were all scared away from us), two of my other children in the back are riding their bikes.

Sometimes when we go to the cemetery I wonder if it is in any way seen as bad manners to go there to feed ducks, enjoy sunshine, and have children playing and riding their bikes. I have decided that as long as my children understand how to behave if people are there visiting a grave, and do not play on top of burial sites or cruise their bikes between the headstones, that it's ok. To me, it is a great testimony of life to have the dead and the very alive side by side. I don't want to be buried when I die, but if I did, I think it would be nice to be someplace beautiful, where people came by choice rather than obligation, where children would laugh and play and mothers could relax....