Untold Stories.
I was reminded today, of something I have thought of doing many times, but have yet to get it started. I was reading a blog post about passions, and remembered this one, for the idea is a bit of a passion. The idea is to find a nearly, or completely abandoned graveyard, find a name on badly weathered stone, and find out what I can of that person’s story. If nothing is known, then return and see what the stone has to tell me. Today I took the first step toward this goal.
Near our new home lies an old graveyard, not used since the early 1800s. There is a clear path to follow to the site, and today we walked that path. There we found the stones, some standing, some not. The larger stones were carved, most still readable, but there are many smaller stones, still standing, but smaller and uncarved, quarried from local slate. These were probably the markers for small children, or the stones of the poorer folk and their children.
One stone marked the grave of a woman who died at the age of forty, a very small stone stands close by her. Easy to guess what took her life. A neighbor of ours told us the graveyard was too close to the cliff, and one year, in a bad storm, most of it slid off into the sea. So many untold stories. Some I do hope to tell one day.
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I walked around a couple of graveyards before I wrote my 'McKinnon' blog, and it's such a humbling experience to picture all the life that those graves mark. Every stone indicated a story way beyond any book could detail, and there were hundreds of them. And because of all those bodies in the ground, there are people walking around above, still with life and love in their hearts. :-)
ReplyDeleteLes, it sure is humbling. When I visit these places, my heart breaks for these forgotten people. Ah well, it is the cycle of life I guess, but I'd still like to bring back a few through the stories, even if just to acknowledge that they once lived, loved, and helped shape our world.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the world we're shaping will look like in a few hundred years.
I have that same sensation when I pass abandoned houses on the highway ... imagining all the life that once went on in them. Hey, head across the bay to Blackhead and you'll find a graveyard full of Hudson's from Adam's Cove ... the founders of my massive fortune!
ReplyDeleteNew Yarmouth, Cumberland County Nove Scotia holds the history of my vast fortunes. Tee hee I may one of the last people alive who could find the old foundations. The folk are long gone, the farms reclaimed by the forest, only lingering in the memories of a few. Wow, even more untold stories.
ReplyDeleteHey, come on up, we'll go exploring. :)