Friday, March 5, 2010

Charles

Here is the most thought-provoking tombstone I have ever encountered in my life. It's in the city cemetery for the historic town of Rodney. The cemetery is all grown up now and if you don't know where it was you will have a hard time ever finding it. A tree is just about to consume this entire tombstone of someone I call Charles. I call him that because when I took a photo of this tombstone on Dec. 15, 2007, you could nearly read the name. It is pictured in the last photo. Click on the photos to enlarge them, if you prefer. The top photos are of the tombstone as shot on Feb. 27, 2010.

He's just about gone. I have trouble expressing my feelings about what these photos mean to me. I am glad I know Charles is there, for in a few years no one will even know his tombstone existed. But I know. And I will keep visiting him every year until his tombstone is completely covered up. In a few years, I will have to point out the lump in the tree to photo friends who go with me and tell them the story.

But I also like the lessons I am learning from Charles. Don't take it for granted that you will be remembered. Live on through your children, your children's children and your children's children's children. Tell me what you think. I would love to hear it.

2 comments:

  1. Bless you for the preserving and the keeping of the flame for those who may have been forgotten by all who knew them.

    We look at our little ones, wondering what the world will be like when they are older, grown up, our age, and it's like looking down a broad green vista in a garden, with side paths and bowers and overgrown hedges, but the flowers are glorious.

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  2. I thought you might like to know that the "Charles" stone is almost certainly the burial marker of Charles Amasa Clark. Charles was the son of my 3rd great-grandfather Nelson Clark who is buried inside the fenced plot just behind the tree. The stone was still readable when the cemetery was surveyed in 1955. The inscription was copied as: "Charles A. Clark / b. Dec 18, 1846 at Lake Providence, La. / d. Oct 28, 1875, Tensas Parish, La." As you say, Charles's stone is almost gone now. I'm grateful that you and others have made a record so that we can remember.

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