3 posts tagged “graveyard”
I met a lovely gal in Photography class, Sherry. She as bee thinking of starting a blog here, and I hope she does. I think she would like it. Anyway, we decided to go out and explore the Tribal graveyard and some abandoned houses yesterday with our cameras. At the graveyard it was very interesting to see so many names there that are names for places in my state, like Seattle and Cowlitz. It was also kind of disturbing to see so many small markers with no names on them, just the words "at rest". So many anonymous. w
After that we went and found these three abandoned houses I have seen several times out of the side window of our car. They were in such bad decay I would not dare go inside, especially the first building, the floors had fallen away from the walls, and molding on the bottom of the wall was framing open air below it. The other side was another house that was filled with garbage. Piles of trash bags ripped open by people looking for treasure, animals looking for food, and hard winds and rains. We jokes as we walked around about how recent our tetanus shot was, and how if we fell through the soft spot on the ground to save our cameras. It was so overstimulating. So much stuff. Then there was a two story shop, it was burned recently. Opening up the roof for lovely skylights.
We went to lunch at the Organic Comfort food cafe, my new favorite eatery. So Yummy! We chatted a little before she had to get off to her kiddo's who were home from school. I downloaded my pics from my camera and it hit me, I was SO tired! I slept SO hard last night, I think I might even take a nap today! Still Tired! But it is so nice, I have to get a bike ride in. I wonder where Clementine (bike) will take Ruby (camera) and I today.
We found ourselves without milk for breakfast on a Saturday morning. Going out to breakfast it is. We go to our new favorite greasy spoon, we could walk there, but we choose to drive so we could shop at the farmer's market after. We chit chat about this or that, some silence as one or both of us stare into space and mentally make a to do list for the day. Lots of coffee, fresh steamy pancakes with warm syrup, omelettes and crisp hash browns. Lovely smiles on the faces of the wait staff as they fill our coffee cups often. My husband was quiet for a bit, thinking as he usually does, getting lost inside of his thoughts before he actually says something.
He tells me he went on his afternoon walk alone on Friday because one co-worker was not at work and the other was super busy. He decided to take a different route, he decided to walk through the graveyard. It is a really old graveyard, it houses some of this areas oldest settlers. He just meandered on the path, no direction, just letting his feet lead him. He saw the large spires and statuaries in the distance, he walked. He was drawn to a large tree with a tiny rectangle stone on the ground. It was far from other markers, alone by this tree. He tried to read what the name and date were, he could make out the date of 1856, and that it had been a child of 15 days. I sat across the table from this beautiful man whose eyes were becoming shinier and red as he spoke of his experience, but also had the vision of a mourning mother who needed someone to see her pain of losing her child, she was in white and had her hair tied up in a large bun on the top of her head. She clutches a lace lined square of silk below her nose. I felt that she knew my amazing husband could feel her and pulled him over to mourn with her. To mourn the passing of her beloved baby that only lived for 15 days.
My husband ponders why he was drawn to that marker, of all of the obscenely huge monuments he is drawn to this small modest weathered stone. Wonders why these other people feel like they were so important that they needed these larger spires for people to see and know they were here. Why they were more important than this tiny child whose headstone was not meant to draw attention to who this baby was, but to mark the spot where the mother was to visit time after time to think of the child that might have been, visiting on birthdays and holidays. My husband stood there, and was startled by a mans voice. He looked up to see a grounds keeper saying "what are you doing here?" gruffly. My husband states he worked nearby and was just on a lunchtime walk. The grounds keeper sized him up and decided to believe him. He goes on to tell Aaron that they have had a lot of junkies stealing the copper headstones and getting cash for them at certain recycling centers. He heads back to work and keeps this experience to himself until this Saturday morning at the greasy spoon.
