My dad suggested that I go to the Oak Hill cemetery on the edge of town to find monuments. There are some traditional monuments, such as this statue in honor of the town's soldiers who died during the Spanish-American War:
Or the monuments that tend to say more about the family's status than about the loved one who has passed.
Some monuments give you some insight into the person who is memorialized.
Gravestones pull at me, not just because I am fascinated by the histories of the people whose lives are encapsulated in a birth date, death date and the few descriptive words that fit on the stone, but also because I see in them the grief of the living. Their desire to declare to the world: this person lived, this person made a difference, this person meant something--even if it is with hand-engraved words, like on this stone.
And finally, monuments can remind us that over the centuries and across the continents we all share a common humanity. At the base of this heartbreaking monument, which lists the deaths of five children over the course of just two months in 1884, lies a very modern note. It says: "Sprinkled with a Mother's Love." I imagine that a mother who has experienced her own pain visits this monument to send her support back to the grieving parents and to pray for these five little souls.
To see other monuments around the world, please visit Francesca's
Fuoriborgo and click on the links in the comments section.
