I Grave, Therefore I Am
Shanna Riley March 23rd, 2007
Welcome to my blog about "graving" - a term coined by Find A Gravers for those that choose to spend ample time in cemeteries, looking at or recording cemeteries, either as a hobby or just for the pleasure of it.
Often, "gravers" - those that go "graving" - are as normal as everyone else; they just happen to take pleasure in something that others find distasteful or morbid. Some people find cemeteries frightening and others would consider spending time there rather depressing. Gravers and cemetery-lovers everywhere, however, find their time in graveyards to be peaceful, exciting, and enjoyable.
My mother's love of cemeteries definitely fed my own passion for them, and being in a cemetery was a fairly normal part of our lives. Every Halloween, during the light hours, my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother would go to the family cemetery in our hometown and "take care of our people" for All Saints' Day. While they spent long hours cleaning around the graves of loved ones and putting brightly colored 'mums with pots wrapped in green foil on their final resting places, we children played - happily - among the stones. I thought - and still do think - it was a postiviely delightful way to spend Halloween day!
The next day, November 1, these women would trek out to my great-grandmother's family graves, her parents and siblings, in Dupont and Plaucheville, Louisiana; which are in Avoyelles Parish. There, too, we would play among the old, crumbling headstones while these matriarchs took to the task of lovingly keeping up long-gone family members' graves.
I cherish these memories. It must have left a strong impression on my mother, as well, who grew up with the same customs...for if ever we saw an interesting-looking cemetery on the side of the road, we didn't hesitate to stop and poke around. Even if a cemetery was deemed "spooky" by us, it was so only in a delightful, spine-tingling sense.
To me, a cemetery is a thousand stories buried under cool, dark soil. Every name on every tombstone was a person - at one time, flesh and blood like you and I - who led a life; who loved, cried, gained, and lost in their lifetime. Who were they? How did they live their lives? How did they die? These questions run through my head every time I look upon a grave marker.
Sometimes an interesting grave, a particular name, or for no seeming reason, I am drawn to search out what became of the person whose remains I am now standing over. The most obvious of such thing being my research into a project I call The Brandon Children; the children buried in the small cemetery you see as my header graphic.
Cemeteries and graveyards are more than scary, morbid places that are home to legions of dead. They are the end of thousands of lives'; they are the final resting places of lives now ended - people who lived and did not want to be forgotten, who should not be forgotten. In a cemetery, I do not feel sad or frightened - I feel serene and thoughtful.
And that is why I grave. Welcome to my blog.
- A Graver's Thoughts
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