31 Days of Love & Hate :: Day 28 ~ Cemeteries

I love cemeteries.

During some free time during the Allume Conference I noticed there was an cemetery a block away.  Stuck between buildings & hotels, a place where life drives or walks past each day, is Springwood Cemetery.

I spent an hour walking through it and didn’t even come close to walking through the entire cemetery.  It has 10,000 grave sites, 2,600 of them unmarked. I purposely did not Google this cemetery before I walked through it.  I didn’t want to be swayed by making sure I saw the notable headstones.  I just wanted to wander, wonder, ponder.

I was struck by the quietness and didn’t pass another person walking through during my hour long walk.

Some are probably confused that I want to spend my free time walking through a cemetery full of dead people.  I always have, even as a kid. I like to read the names & see if anyone has the same day I was born {April 10} & to read the epitaphs.

However, something unexpected happened.

As I was strolling through, reading & listening to the calm breeze blow through the trees scattered about, I noticed this headstone:

I was drawn to it at first by the shape of the top of the headstone.  I couldn’t figure out what the carved image at the top was supposed to be, then my eyes drifted down to her name.

We have the same name.  More than that, I assume the “M. Caroline” means that “M” is the initial for her first name.  My heart started to beat a little faster with the similarity to my own name.  Did you know that my middle name is Caroline?  Then, a little further down, “aged 41 years”.  That’s how old I am right now. The tears started to well up in my eyes.

Similar name.  Same age. Separated by 140 years.

Her epitaph?

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

Most of the headstones are weathered & hard to read.  140 years hasn’t erased that one yet.

Another grave site of a young man who died at the young age of 36. The inscription, his epitaph:

Honest & punctual as a merchant. As a friend, zealous & sincere. As a husband & father, amiable & affectionate.  In the various relations of life amiable & praiseworthy.  This stone is created by his afflicted widow in testimony of her love for his person while living & of her veneration for his memory.  Faith in God through Jesus Christ & hope in the resurrection.

His widow’s grave site is beside him, in death as she was in life, placed there just one year later.

My wandering walk through this historic cemetery was my worship service that day.  I walked & talked with Jesus as tears filled my eyes.

Art makes it possible for us to remember both the beauty & the horrific, the lovely & the loss.  Art numbs the wound just enough for us to be able to access the source of it, to reach down into the depths & pull it up to examine.

– Emily P. Freeman A Million Little Ways pg. 108

Some of the tears may have been from sadness but mostly from the beauty that I was surrounded by during my walk. The beauty of the words written in the epitaphs.  The beauty of the old trees surrounding these grave sites.  The beauty of a rose bush blooming right beside a headstone. The beauty of a walk with Jesus.

My soul came alive walking through that cemetery.

That may sound strange to some of you.

Life should make my soul come alive, right?  Well, in a way, a cemetery is full of life.

Life that was lived.

Life that is living an eternal life.

The sting of death that surrounds a cemetery does not have an eternal sting.

“‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:55-56

{This is a series of posts for 31 Days of Love & Hate. To read the other posts, click here.}