WEATHERED GRAVESTONES

So about a week ago I was in Boston, Mass. This would be my first time ever visiting the city. So I had to do the tourist-y stuff. I needed to see Fenway (well, maybe next time.) I had to see the Cheers restaurant (and would you believe that everybody knew my name?) I wanted to walk the freedom trail (a bit ambitious, but we did walk a lot of it.) I wanted to see the Maparium (hello, I was inside of a three-story glass globe.) And I wanted to see the gravesite of Paul Revere. HOLY ONE IF BY LAND AND TWO IF BY SEA BATMAN! This got me.

His gravesite sits among a sea of tombstones, and you have to search pretty hard for it. You would think it would be a huge tombstone stating who this is and that he is buried in this spot. It is a tiny tombstone. In fact, you would have no idea that anyone of any importance was lying in this spot. Just a bevy of pebbles surrounding a smoothed over rock with two words carved on it…Paul Revere.

I will gladly take this moment to come clean with my unhealthy obsession with cemeteries. I have no idea why I like them (well I like them during the day time.) I just do. I think cemeteries are beautiful. Maybe because despite that we think they may be grim, it is a place where people go to honor ones that have died. I also like the juxtaposition of people who go there realizing that we have to honor life, but we do this by recognizing death. I also just loved the fact that people who have passed on can announce that they were here - that they had a place in this world.

However, this cemetery in Boston showed me something completely different. There were tombstones that were clearly marked in the 16 or 1700’s. I was astounded that I was looking at something from that time period. (Let’s face it you don’t get a lot of that in many parts of this country.) However, as I was going in and out of the headstone rows (and irritating a few people as to how someone can take that many pictures of a cemetery) I noticed something strange…the gravestones had been weathered (as things tend to do when being left outside for 300 years.) However, something struck me on this particular day.

You see the headstones only had small amounts of information on them. On the newer ones (and by newer I mean like 1800’s) you could make out the name and the year they died, and if you squinted you could also make out their quote they left to be remembered by. However, for most of the gravestones, you couldn’t make out a single thing. They had been beaten by rain, and snow, and sleet, and wind. Time had showed these gravestones who the boss was. Time had washed away any indication of what was there. All that remained was a round headstone marking that underneath this rock is…was a body.

This got me to thinking about life (as for me that is what gravesites tend to do.) Eventually we all pass on. Eventually Time will show all of us who is the master. We are forgotten. In time. Even something as powerful as a rock or stone gets weathered down to a smooth surface. All that remains is a rock that shows that someone did exist on this earth.

I don’t say this to be macabre or to be negative, because I don’t think of it as a negative. I think it is a very positive thing at which to look. Life is going by, we are getting older with every passing day. Time is already starting to show us that it is going to move on (maybe the only thing that moves on despite all human efforts.) Why waste that time? We may want to be remembered (we all do) but why spend all of that life just trying to be remembered. Why not just do it because we believe personally in what we are doing. Stand up for things. Fight for a better world. Fight for what you believe in. Who knows maybe some of these empty gravesites are soldiers who fought for what they believed in? I don’t know. Soldiers who did what they had to do for the good of what they believed in. They were interested in the present and fought for a future where their names wouldn’t be remembered. That is such a powerful thought to me. That someone would fight for a greater good and not just to be remembered.

Or maybe these gravestones are mothers or daughters who stood behind while their fathers and husbands went to war to make sure that life was as good as it could be for their children. Once again, fighting in the present for a future they didn’t know about and not to be remembered. I think what I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t matter if you are remembered, what matters is that while you have that time, before Time takes it from you, maybe you should go off and do everything that you believe in…whether that is fighting for a cause, or seeing Europe.

I don’t know if there is only one life or not. I like to think there is, but truth be told, only certain people can tell you for a fact if that is the case, and they ain’t talking.

I guess the lesson I am choosing to learn from weathered gravestones is that life is short, Time marches on and forgets everyone, so make the most of the seconds you have.