[NT] The Graveyard's Untold Stories

[Oberon]

Have you ever taken the opportunity to walk through a graveyard and consider the names and dates on the stones? I have. I will look at the grave marker of a man who died before the Great War and wonder, what was he like? What was his favorite food? Was he brisk, attentive, melancholy? What was his story? And I mourn not for the man, but for the richly detailed story of the man's life... a story that died away in pieces, as the last people who had ever known him also passed away.

Every marker in the graveyard represents thousands of days both good and bad, each with its own experiences and feelings and acts and impulses and thoughts, and the book of them is closed and sealed forever, never to be opened again. These were people, with hopes and dreams and vices and secrets, now all gone.

That's the sense I get when I wander through a graveyard. Does anyone else sense that?

 

[Oaky]

Do you ever wonder if he knew one of your ancestors? That if he didn't trip over when he was 10 years old the change of events could have been that you'd never be born?

 

[MacGuffin]

I thought this was about TypeC's Graveyard.


My church has a graveyard. One of the ghost tours in Old Town ends in it. Some interesting stories. Graveyards can be fascinating.

 

[Laurie]

I love graveyards. I love seeing the history there. I found a stone in an old graveyard around here "bugler in the rev war" I want to tour all the little graveyards around the area but I have never gotten around to it. I don't enjoy new graveyards like the old ones you find in the weirdest places.

 

[Spamtar]

I love a nice graveyard.

There is this one near where I live that is right over the ocean. A lot of rich people are buried their and they have some cool gravestones (like a 24' pyramid). Makes a casual walk with a friend a little bit more entertaining/spiritual. With Halloween/All Souls Day/All Saints Day just around the corner, it is time appropriate too.

When I get a grave stone I want it to be in a shape of a stone bench so people will be able to sit next to me when they go for graveyard strolls.

 

[Spamtar]

I thought this was about TypeC's Graveyard..

Me too, thought it was gonna be like one of those "Best of...the worst" type threads of sifting through the Graveyard forum for a few gems.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought this was about TypeC's Graveyard.

Who knows what is buried there?

... i always think about the people and their narratives when I walk through a graveyard.
And I wonder who will walk near my grave and wonder about me, once I am dead.

 

[Oaky]

I thought this was about TypeC's Graveyard.

Same. It would have been an interesting thread.

 

[Phantonym]

Graveyards make me feel uneasy. I can't stand being around them for too long. Too sad. I do start to think about all the people and what kind of lives they've lived, what happened to them. I loved reading the names on the tombstones when I was a kid, I didn't fully realize the meaning of the place very well then.

 

[FigerPuppet]

That's the sense I get when I wander through a graveyard. Does anyone else sense that?

Yes.

 

[Domino]

Have you ever taken the opportunity to walk through a graveyard and consider the names and dates on the stones? I have. I will look at the grave marker of a man who died before the Great War and wonder, what was he like? What was his favorite food? Was he brisk, attentive, melancholy? What was his story? And I mourn not for the man, but for the richly detailed story of the man's life... a story that died away in pieces, as the last people who had ever known him also passed away.

Every marker in the graveyard represents thousands of days both good and bad, each with its own experiences and feelings and acts and impulses and thoughts, and the book of them is closed and sealed forever, never to be opened again. These were people, with hopes and dreams and vices and secrets, now all gone.

That's the sense I get when I wander through a graveyard. Does anyone else sense that?

I'm exactly that way, through and through.

I had an obsession with the dead man across the street, laying under a giant headstone behind a collapsing wrought iron fence. He was dead 120 years before I was born. Died in his early 30s. As a child, I was obsessed with the very idea of him. I learned everything I could about him. He was a doctor. I imagined him being a dashing tall man with brown hair and blue eyes, and that his wife loved him so much she could hardly say no to him about anything. I imagined that he'd been nobly and competently tending to some very sick child and contracted her disease - possibly TB or typhoid - and died from it.

Buried out in the countryside of 1850s North Carolina, no longer countryside, next to a Civil War era pecan grove owned by his wife's family. Giant trees I ran and played under, pecans I collected to eat every season.

Did she cry to lose him? Was she a practical woman that kept the viciousness of reality before her while grieving his loss, or was she an idealist who held his hand tightly and furiously until the very last minute and couldn't move from his side without help? Did she never remarry? Did she cry every time she thought of him? Did almost die herself of grief?

It seems that a man named Ransom should be an immortal. I don't know why.

 

[Oberon]

In the cemetery of my father's church, there is a short row of plots near the back that contain a family. That in itself is not unusual, but three of the stones are for three daughters. The girls were between the ages of 3 and 12, and all died within two weeks of each other. This was in 1912.

I used to wonder what their story was. Now I'm happier not to know, I think.

 

[Thalassa]

In the cemetery of my father's church, there is a short row of plots near the back that contain a family. That in itself is not unusual, but three of the stones are for three daughters. The girls were between the ages of 3 and 12, and all died within two weeks of each other. This was in 1912.

I used to wonder what their story was. Now I'm happier not to know, I think.

Considering the time period and their ages and the closeness of their deaths, I would say tuberculosis, flu, or some other illness ravaged the family all at once.

 

[Thalassa]

Response to OP: yes, very much so.

 

[Lux]

Have you ever taken the opportunity to walk through a graveyard and consider the names and dates on the stones? I have. I will look at the grave marker of a man who died before the Great War and wonder, what was he like? What was his favorite food? Was he brisk, attentive, melancholy? What was his story? And I mourn not for the man, but for the richly detailed story of the man's life... a story that died away in pieces, as the last people who had ever known him also passed away.

Every marker in the graveyard represents thousands of days both good and bad, each with its own experiences and feelings and acts and impulses and thoughts, and the book of them is closed and sealed forever, never to be opened again. These were people, with hopes and dreams and vices and secrets, now all gone.

That's the sense I get when I wander through a graveyard. Does anyone else sense that?

When I was younger I used to walk by a big graveyard on my way to work downtown. I usually went in and looked at the different names and the different tombstones. I often wondered about the people there and their families, I wondered if their decedents were still around. Sometimes I'd see fresh flowers on a grave and made me both smile and want to cry at the same time. I used to wish (and still do) I could be privileged enough to read some average Joe or Jane's diary. I wanted to know their thoughts, their hopes, I wanted to know them. So yes, I do get that sense as well.

 

[poppy]

I feel the same way about people who died a long time ago. I always want to know their stories.

I've never lived near an interesting graveyard though. I collect old photographs of people and wonder the same sorts of things about them.

 

[Litvyak]

Yes, I often wonder about these things in graveyards.
I like browsing tombstones from time to time, though it makes me slightly depressed after a while.