Time Well Spent in a Cemetery

While out birding this past weekend, my wife and I stopped by a cemetery in the middle of nowhere. In winter, I like checking large juniper trees for owls. Rural West Texas cemeteries make great places since they often have the only trees as far as the eye can see. I’d especially like to find some Long-eared Owls, but so far no luck.

It’s also an incredible experience to walk around the grounds and look at the headstones. You’d be amazed at what you can learn, and what you can guess, by looking at only names and dates.

For example, one that especially stands out was a large headstone with a husband and wife’s name on it. Right by, was a headstone with the same last name. The baby was born October 31, 1947 and died around the end of November, 1947. We noticed a fresh wreath on the headstone, and wondered who might have placed it. The husband had passed away in the late ’90s, but the wife’s death was still an empty space on the headstone. Here’s a woman that came out, probably (just guessing) on the day her baby died, almost 60 years ago now, to place wreaths at the headstones of her lost child and husband. What’s her life like now? Lonely? Sad? Waiting?

We also noticed a man buried next to a wife that died young. It’s always a little scary to look at that and think, that could be my wife. We noticed that his headstone said something about being buried with “his two loved ones” and on the other side, he had another wife he’d married after the first passed away. He even outlived her by a few years.

There was a headstone with a star of David, a veteran who’d fought in World War II. Next to his grave, someone had stuck a white cross in the ground. Was he a Jewish Christian or did someone try a little proselytizing after the fact?

There was a man born in 1830, the earliest we could find. You sit there and think about it and you realize his granddad and America might share the same birthday.

There were many husbands and wives, with the date of their marriage between their names. I realized that we usually think of people who die as being old. Yet being old is just one part of their life and not the only part. Here, lying in the grave, they seem young again. They were once my age. They had a new wife. They became parents. They went to school or started careers. Yet we seem to think of them only as old. (Perhaps this is a greater fallacy of younger generations.)

One thing that really got me thinking was the common statement Gone But Not Forgotten. Written on the tombstone of a man who died in 1925, it’s a lie! It’s something that we defiantly proclaim, for those who are living, in spite of what we know will inevitably happen. Gone for over 80 years now, I’m guessing that man is forgotten. Even if his own family remembers him, it’s likely only by name.

And the great thing about walking a cemetery is the inescapable fact that you’re going to join them. It’s sobering, but I find it peaceful. In life, death seems so scary. It seems painful. Yet this weekend, there I was, surrounded by dozens of people who’ve passed through its door. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so bad. You realize it’s normal. Lots of people do this! And I too will be forgotten. Yet the lives I touch and the contributions I make can have a profound impact. And I think in this way, you’re not forgotten and life’s not meaningless.

The next time you’re out in the middle of nowhere and see a sign directing you to a cemetery, take the detour. Imagine the stories, imagine the people, and reflect on the story you hope is told about you when your time is up.