#1069 perpetuity

On my usual trek with my dogs, I walk past a cemetery and always look at the graves as I pass by. There is an assortment of tombstone sizes and shapes, but for the most part the markers are generic.  The granite contains a name and dates, but not much else.  

In Boston, there are graveyards that are older than our country.  Those, too, have similar appearance and now barely legible dates or names.  We have made huge advances in so many areas, but the cemetery remains eerily similar to those of hundreds of years ago. What stories these markers could tell about our heritage and the people who helped craft it, if only we knew about the people behind the dates.

In death, there is so much similarity, but think about the differences in lives that the stones represent.

I wonder what tombstones would look like if they did not need to withstand the elements. I think of people whose lives were filled with vibrancy, color and action having it all reduced to a few characters chiseled into stone.  What if instead a person could put mementos from their life on display, much like the AIDS Quilt or makeshift memorials after a tragedy…what would commemorate their grave then? 

Tombstones are a mini-canvas of a life. Think of what you would put on yours to tell your story to the next generations.