This is me giving you a bit of an insight into my personality and what it is that I love. I love dead people. Yes, it is true; this woman loves the past, the history of everything, and with history comes (naturally) the deceased. By loving dead people, what I mean is I find myself gravitating to a city or county graveyard where I can walk among the stones, reading them and thinking about the departed whose body is "resting" beneath the words shared about them. I read the stones. I think about the person. I make up stories about them. I even pretend we have known each other while they were alive or when we were all in heaven before coming to Earth, you know, the normal weirdness that happens in the mind of a writer.
I can, perhaps, lay the blame of my love for dead people squarely on my mother's shoulders as it was she who first took me to the cemeteries when I was young. She liked to see if she could find the oldest marker, the newest marker, the prettiest marker, the ugliest marker, and things of that nature. It was more or less her hobby, and who is to say if it was odd; I was a kid. I had no idea if it was weird or not. I know that for over 100 years, people have gathered at Edgar Allen Poe's grave to celebrate Halloween with him and/or people who liked his work. I know that's considered odd, but fun. I would do it.
When I was in my mid-20s, I went to the gravesite of Temple Lea Houston, the last son of General Sam Houston; it's in Woodward, Oklahoma. I not only visited his grave, but I also spent the night in the museum, where most of his personal effects still remain. I, in fact, helped to set up the display that they used to showcase his personal and professional wares. That's a wonderful blog; I'll leave the link. When I found Temple's gravestone, I was quite disappointed. It was too new. Yep, it was right out of the 1980s or maybe a bit earlier, but it wasn't from 1905, the year he ceased to be among the living. It didn't fit with the times, and it bothered me. It still does.
Bill Doolin and Elmer McCurdy's tombstones aren't my favorites either. They look like they are trying too hard to be old. Elmer's was set to match Bill's, but neither of them is from the time of the men's deaths. (Albeit, it's true Elmer died in 1911 but was buried in 1977, there's that...another great story.) When you walk the cemeteries as much as I do, you start to notice things, things that maybe others just don't see. I see them. One of the things I see is the blue fake plastic/silk flowers that people buy, and I have a thing about them, too; I don't like them. I've commissioned my friend to steal every blue plastic/silk flower from the graveyard (when I do die), and she's to line my gravestone with them - - all of them. Because that way she can save money and I can have a good laugh.
I find myself doing something else, too; when I look for a place to live in Scotland, I tend to find churches nearby so I can see if their cemeteries are worth walking through. Some places don't even have an old churchyard or kirkyard, and that just won't do. Just as important as it is for me to have a good grocery store within walking distance, I want to walk to a cemetery, MY cemetery, with MY dead people, and I want to meet my new "friends" on a regular basis. I have stories to tell and stories to listen to. I have a vested interest in that I am a writer and feel that they can help me fill in some of the blanks when I need to do so.
I don't really care if the person I'm talking to at the time of the meeting was murdered or if they died of natural causes. When I run across a young child's grave, I stop and pray. I usually pray for the families and the sorrow that the child's death caused in the area; as you know, it had to be devastating. We, among the living, can learn a lot from the dead if we just learn to be patient, listen, observe, and maybe do a bit of research. What would we find if we could look inside the coffins? What would we see in terms of dress, attire, perhaps knick-knacks, important papers, jewelry, love notes, and more? I know they may all be just dust by now, but there was a time when... Well, you fill in the blank.
Photo Credit: travelok.com
Link to the blog about me spending the night in the museum.
https://judestringfellow.blogspot.com/2017/01/confessions-of-writer.html
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