The cemetery at Trinity Church on Edisto Island.
I am a tombstone tourist. A cemetery hopper. As a taphophile—the technical term for one who tours cemeteries—I haunt (ha ha) local graveyards and seek them out when I travel. Charleston and Savannah are rich in atmospheric, historic cemeteries. And an afternoon in the famous Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was fascinating. People are dying to get in there!
But aren't cemeteries morbid and sad? Not at all. I find them life affirming. Let me explain...
A local custom on the coast is to leave seashells on a loved one’s headstone.
Cemeteries are open air museums, filled with architecture—Art Deco, Romanesque, Victorian— and motifs. Carved angels, of course, for solace. Headstones are designed with ornate flowers— lilies, palms, weeping willows— and animals, especially doves and lambs.
Far from being dead space, cemeteries often function as parks filled with birds and pollinators, wildlife, flowers and trees. They are enforced green space thwarting developers, and are often city-swallowed, demanding stillness, respect, and offering sacred sanctuary.
Graveyards are inspiring. Cemeteries figured prominently in my first two novels. I can't help but write about them—they are filled with stories and ideas for character names. And plots 🤣 So many poignant messages! The dogs bark, but the caravan passes: Life goes on. I think of thee as I lay on my bed waiting: A wife mourning her husband. Love Never Ends: Nuff said.
Momento mori 💀 Latin for remember you will die, momento mori is a symbolic trope that reminds us of our mortality and the transitory nature of life. Cemeteries are filled with the departed, the arcs of so many lives and families, entire generations buried together, after hardships and heartbreak, good times and love.
Rather than a morbid directive, moments mori is about perspective— embracing and cherishing the brevity of one’s life. A reminder to treat our time as a gift.
Here is one of my favorite passages about cemeteries, from the gorgeous novel Ironweed by Wiliam Kennedy:
Riding up the winding road of Saint Agnes Cemetery in the back of the rattling old truck, Francis Phelan became aware that the dead, even more than the living, settled down in neighborhoods. The truck was suddenly surrounded by fields of monuments and cenotaphs of kindred design and striking size, all guarding the privileged dead… And ah yes, here too, inevitably, came the flowing masses, row upon row of them under simple headstones and simpler crosses.