Gravestone Carvings and Poetry - The Art of the Grief

Any town, no matter how small, has a cemetery.  In some, the newer grave markers are scattered around the older stones.  In others, the older cemeteries are closed to any new residents.  Stone walls clearly define their borders that a visitor must climb over or pass through beautiful but poignantly simple wrought iron gates.  These quiet places are worthy of a glance and even a photograph for their beauty and homage to lost loves.

Stones may be lined up like sentinels or seemingly placed so such random that a sensitive visitor could believe the town didn't think others would die, therefore space would never be at a premium.  When walking through some very old cemeteries in New England, one can imagine the surviving loved one saying, "Here.  I want him (or her) here.  This is a nice spot."  And the grave diggers would start because back in the 1600s, 1700s, possibly not even through most of the 1800s were there many restrictions on where a loved one could be buried. The deceased was buried simply, with the bereaved going through an official mourning period that signfied their loss more obviously than is allowed today.  And it was the gravestones that oft times spoke for the grief-stricken.  The art and poetry carved deeply into the stone markers testify to long lives at a time when life was harsh, to mariners lost at sea with only the stone to tell of their passing, standing as a memorial though there are no remains lying underneath it, and to young lives cut short under tragic circumstances.  Women dying in childbirth, many times along with their children.

When I pass by gravestones proving such stories I wonder if the husband's heartbreak caused him to feel he needed to be the one to help turn the ground for his wife and children.  Or was it all too much and he could only stand by and see his remaining family and neighbors lend their hands during his devestation?  So much history is reflected in such poignant brevity on those stone.  The efigies, the flowers, the skulls, the winged angels are all symbols with meanings behind each one.  Set in stone, the legacy is sometimes ornate or sometimes simple but it is what the mourner wants to express.  The few photos that follow have captions that explain the meanings behind the carvings.  They are by no means the full list of symbols that can be found on gravestones.

For the interested history buffs and taphophiles (one who loves cemeteries), I've included a link to a site that relates a lot of the symbols carved and their meanings.  For the best education, I think that little bit of knowledge coupled with a quiet walk thorugh these sacred places are best.  Start in your own area to see if there are any older markers.  Then plan a trip to New England.  Boston, Salem, and Plymouth, Massachusetts are wonderful, big noisy cities with very old cemeteries.  Portsmouth, Concord, and Meredith, New Hampshire are smaller with their own historical cemeteries.  But go off the beaten path to places Laurel Glen Cemetery in Cuttingsville, Vermont where a grief-stricken man named John Bowman built a huge mauoleum for his wife and daughter complete with a life-sized statue of himself.  He is looking inside with such longing to join them, confirmed by the key to the door he holds in his hand aimed towards the door.  It conveys such a sense of heartbreak, such a visual sense of deep grief that it is hard to walk away from.

Others are not quite so demonstrative but are just as eloquent.  Bennington, Vermont is where the poet Robert Frost is buried.  His epitaph, which he wrote himself, reads in part, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."  Then there is Old Burial Hill in Marblehead, Massachusetts which has an obelisk with the names of sixty-five men from ten ships that were lost in the 19th century's version of the "Perfect Storm."  A massive hurricane strength gale struck the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and all were lost and never found.  It is a sober reminder that, as the Massachusettes Fishing industry wants you to remember, "when you buy fish, you're buying men's lives."

Go to an old cemetery and take a stroll.  Read the stones of names that are not in the history books in school but held no less importance to their anguished families.  They are the wives, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters of those who struggled before us.  They endured as we did.  And their stones are carved with the recognition of what their simple lives and deaths meant to their loved ones.