I have a 'thing' about cemeteries.....a real 'thing' about cemeteries. I love them, and the older the better! I get excited when I find a new cemetery that I can take off walking through and explore. Some might call this weird or morbid, but I've never been normal. I haven't quite nailed down the exact reason why I find them to be so facinating...perhaps it's the history...the LARGE amount of history that is concentrated in one spot. I can hardly wrap my mind around it, because history to me doesn't have to be a well known event in time....like the signing of the Deceleration of Independence for instance. To me, history can be a story told between two friends about a significant memory. History is nothing more than memories. Memories of a past...our past.
One thing I can be certain of...at some point in time I am going to die. This fine little physical body (laugh now)..was not built to last forever. Everything changes...nothing stays the same...we all must pass on. I already have a cemetery plot designated to be my final resting place, located within the boundaries of Dawson Cemetery in Milltown, Arkansas. Several years back, my mother and father purchased enough burial plots to house the entire family. I mean the ENTIRE family...we've got room if you need one...and we'll be quite neighbors.
Jeff and my parents have been told how I want my headstone to look. I would like a black African granite stone that is large and rectangular...standing about 2 1/2 - 3 feet high. One one side I would like to have 'LITTLEFIELD' in large block letters and an outline of the Teton mountain range above...not the entire mountain...just the outline....get it right people. Center "LITTLEFIELD" in the very middle of the stone. On the other side I would like 'Dorie Leigh'....born August 14, 1979....left this world ???....and they can put whatever else they want below that except for 'Gone but not forgotten'. I have a reason for this.
When I visit cemeteries...I get weepy...and I cry EVERY time. I just have these emotional feelings come over me and I cry. I ususally don't know a soul in these places, but I cry for them anyway. I don't know if I need to be happy or sad for them, because I don't know the circumstances in which these idividuals died. I don't have a Steel Magnolia episode where "I just want to know WHY, WHY, WHY"...but I do wonder. You see, when I see a cemetery..I don't think of the person being dead...I try to picture them as they were in thier life or period of history in which they lived. I question what they looked like, what they did for a living, how they might got there, were they happy, did they know Jesus, what life was like for them. I love to read the names, the beautiful names. I typically just try to smile at each one, silently tell them 'hello' in the chance they can 'hear' me or 'read' my thoughts, and I always tell the babies that they are loved.
There are always certain headstones that standout when I visit a cemetery. Sometimes there are large statues of angels, some markers are towering 'Woodsman of the World' stones in the shape of a tree, some are Masonic....and others go almost unnoticed. They are simply marked by a lone fieldstone with no identification. In the older and usually rural family cemeteries, you will surely find these here. Many stones are engraved with the words "loving mother", "loving father", "son", "daughter", "baby"and "gone, but not forgotten"....but are they really not forgotten? Time has begun to erase the chiselled lettering on their grave markers, lichens and moss are covering their lettering, and what about the unmarked graves? Do we really know who they are? Will we ever know who they are? They are gone and forgotten.
I will eventually be forgotten by the individuals that walk this earth. I will eventually be an unmarked grave that no one can identify. Perhaps weeds and trees will cover the ground atop my resting place making me invisible. Perhaps the only trace of my existance will be the blood that flows through the veins of future generations.....my blood....and the blood of those that have gone before me.
Therefore, when visiting a cemetery...I am humbled by the brave souls that have left this world, for my present is influenced by their past. The decisions and actions made by our ancestors...the very people that lie beneath the headstones in our cemeteries have laid the foundation for the world in which we live. We are all a part of these individuals, be it good or bad, and they MUST be honored. One day...our fate will match theirs.
I am so sorry Henrietta and Louis Moore. You survived the Civil War, you saw the first light bulb, witnessed Henry Ford's first car roll off the assembly line, were alive for World War I...and this is what happened to you.
Veta and Eugene F. Moore....you lived through the first World War and Eugene made it through the Great Depression....you did not deserve this. I am sorry.
This cemetery is located in the Cherokee Wildlife Management Area in Clebourne County Arkansas. Like so many others..it has been vandilized.
