I Dig Graveyards

I actually said that to a client who called while I was exploring the graveyard surrounding Kinsgston Chapel in Mathews, Virginia. I wasn’t trying to be funny, I just said it, with no irony in mind at all.

My Dad got me started on loving graveyards. I don’t see them as being macabre, sad, or scary. Graveyards are tangible history we can examine for ourselves outside of a book.

Years ago, Dad told me about an ancient burying ground in downtown Hartford that had been enclosed by buildings as time went by. You entered into the graveyard through an office building. Graves dated back to the 1600’s. One poignant pair of headstones from that era captured my fancy: a husband who died at sea and a wife who “drowned in her tears” a month later.

Grace’s graveyard was completely different from that hidden spot surrounded by hustle, bustle, traffic, and office workers hurrying to lunch or back to their offices. Here, there was utter peace, simply the sounds of the wind soughing in the old growth trees, the faint sound of the water, birds twittering, and the occasional plop of a falling pecan. It was a final resting place in every sense of the term.

Trees soared over my head, leaves fluttered bright green, the blue sky was the background and the sun filtered through it all.

The water flowed past, as it has for a thousand years and, no doubt, will continue for a thousand more. There was just peace, blessed peace.

When peace like a river attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well with my soul.