Tombstone (c) By Michael Casey

Tombstone  (c) By Michael Casey

 

What do we leave  when we leave this life? We leave a wife and grieving children, we leave a few friends. If we have had a long life we don't leave any friends because they have gone before us. All that remains of us is our tombstone, our name etched in gold on a stone.

 

Some have the job of erecting these stones, what do they think of as they put the stones in place? Do they think of the poor dead person lying dead below in the grass. Do the tombstone installers think of the lives gone before? Do they think of how old or young the deceased are. That man was the same age as me, or whatever?

 

The words chosen can reveal a little about the deceased. He was a dad, he was an uncle, he was a man without a name. He was the unknown soldier. She was a Jane Doe with nobody to mourn her, she had lain in a fridge for 6 months and now finally she was buried. Nodbody came to her funeral, just old Mrs Casey who hitched a ride with the priest so the dead were not buried all alone. A stranger saying a pray for the unloved.

 

Tombstones are not always sad. Spike Milligan had "I told you I was unwell" etched on his stone, written in Gaelic so not to offend English speakers. My own Chinese dad, my father in law his stone is all black marble with gold writing in Mandarin, but also on it is one small piece of English "MichaelgCasey" its almost as if my email address  is on his tombstone, has the Internet reached Eternity? No, but it has reached one small corner of a Shanghai graveyard.