Page 5 - Demo

ForewordGreen Hill CemeteryLawrence Co. (284-11)Avivid image from a story read in my youth hovers in my memory. Although I can no longer recall the title or author, one passage persists: In the afterlife, a man gazes down upon a field of stars. Little by little, they twinkle and burn out. Over time they grow scarce and, eventually, the last one disappears. The narrator explains that the stars were people who had known the deceased during his life. As each of them dies, his or her star is extinguished until finally the man%u2019s sky is impenetrably black%u2014all memories of him have been erased from the world of the living.The story evokes two intertwined threads of humanity%u2019s response to death: our desire for eternal life in another sphere and our desire to leave a lasting trace of our existence in this world. We can only imagine at what point in the human trajectory the second longing surfaced, but eventually, rude markers began to be erected as locators of burial sites and as memorials for the people interred there. By the era of the pharaohs, both desires were accommodated: elaborate embalming to preserve the individual for eternity and massive pyramids to proclaim his majesty to future generations.What the richest and most powerful enjoyed was, naturally, coveted by those further down the social ladder. For those who could not command a pyramid in their honor%u2014nobles, court officials and chief scribes%u2014there was little choice but to settle for smaller, flat-roofed mastabas. Centuries later, in western cultures, the same hierarchical approach to memorials persisted. In England, kings, queens, great knights, and ladies were interred above ground in cathedrals with life-sized marble sculptures atop their stone vaults. Women and men of the humble classes were buried in the church cemetery with little more than a cross to testify to their days on earth.In the mid 1700s, the British poet Thomas Gray meditated on this state of affairs in his %u201cElegy Written in a Country Churchyard.%u201d In it, he celebrated the lives and talents of anonymous country folk. For him, the modest inscriptions and humble sculptures served to memorialize their lives. They were reminders that, in Gray%u2019s most famous line, %u201cThe paths of glory lead but to the grave.%u201d Whether a passerby knew the deceased or not, the wellsprings of feeling were enough to prompt %u201cthe passing tribute of a sigh%u201d for a fellow human being.