"Let us cross over the river and rest beneath the shade of the trees".
The quote that comprises the title of this ramblings piece is attributed as the last words spoken by Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the confederate general and confidant to Robert E. Lee, after he had been shot by his own men in April of 1863. Jackson was a peculiar sort of character and we have sometimes felt that way ourselves. We suppose that sometimes everyone does. Like they said when my step daughter went to the Illinois Math and Science Academy: At some time or other, everybody feels as if they were the one who was picked last.
We have always lived a sort of competitive life and we have not liked to lose at much of anything that we have done in that life. But, it happens none the less.
We were in Vienna, Illinois where we were brought up to attend a funeral for a woman who had loved a man enough to want to be buried by him over fifty years after they had been divorced. She had never remarried and had loved him even though time and circumstances had driven them apart. While I was there I had some time to inquire of the local funeral director about whether there might be a place for me beside my parents at the local cemetery. I seemed to remember my father stating that he and my mother had purchased a couple of extra lots in case either one of their children might need to make use of them. The funeral director told me that my parents had not bought any extra lots but that there was one available right beside of them if I might want to make use of it some day.
For the princely sum of two hundred and fifty dollars, I made it my own and settled a long running argument with myself as to where I might want to rest my weary bones when the time came to do so. I had long thought that I might like to be buried out where my grandfather and grandmother lie at eternal rest but, in the end, we decided that the place for us was beside my parents. We buried my brother last year at a community cemetery in a small village south of Vienna where his wife’s folks were buried but we are apparently going to finish this life unattached so the decision on where to go remained entirely with us. Even if we were to marry again, at this age anyone that we might find would have other commitments to those from a prior life, so, that single plot beside my folks seemed as if it had been waiting there for me all along.
Cemeteries have always been an item of interest for me and the one in Vienna is particularly that way. We have wandered its boundaries since late childhood and our studies of local history have made us acquainted with many of the stories that lie hidden below those cryptic lettered stones. The Vienna cemetery is mainly tree shaded and my grave will be that way as well. However, it is good to remember that trees have a definite life expectancy just as well and that my grave will probably end up being there long after some of them are gone. It is interesting to note that even cemetery stones do not last forever and that one day even that entire cemetery may past into oblivion. There is an older cemetery there in Vienna close behind the Baptist church that was used before the one that I have chosen and they, generationally and periodically, try to clear the weeds from it and restore it to some of its former self. But, each time that they do so, the stones sink a little further into the mire and the wording on the stones becomes a little more unreadable. Rubbings are all the rage among the genealogy crowd so that cemetery might be best described as a rubbings place.
When we were out at our grandfathers grave site we noticed that many of the older stones might just as well be there marking anonymity because you could not visibly read anything on them at all. Like the stories of those who lie beneath them, they are passing into the fog of time. And they remind us of the Biblical admonition that once we reach heaven all that went before will be washed away.
When we think of grave yards, we almost automatically think of the one in Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town” where the inhabitants sit by their graves and converse with one another about who has just arrived. They seem almost detached from the scene and in a world apart.
My next move, God willing, will be to purchase a stone for the plot just mentioned above. We think that we will go for something simple as we will avoid the ornate. On the back of it we have decided on a trio of Bible verses: Matthew twenty five, verses thirty one through forty six, First Corinthians, chapter thirteen, verse thirteen and Luke Twelve, verse forty eight. We feel that these references will state what our life has stood for and meant as well as anything else that we could think of. And, down below them there will be the simple word “Lucy” for the one that we will sneak into the cemetery and bury below her name when her time comes if we are fortunate enough to outlive her.
We remember how upset my brother was when my parents decided to buy their cemetery plots and their “stone” when they were in their sixties. But, we told him at the time that it was a natural part of the cycle of life and that he would do the same thing when his time came. And so it goes with so many of us. We once could not comprehend that we would be doing this but it seems a very comfortable thing to do at this point in our life. It is also comforting to think and know that those three bible references will still mean something to someone if our grave stone might last a thousand years or more.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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