posted on August 2, 2001 10:25:52 PM new
Have you ever thought about what you want on your own gravestone? Remember the guy who put "I Told You I Was Sick" on his? I laughed so hard, I couldn't believe someone would actually do that. Now I'm wondering why not??
If you could put aside your emotions, what would you say on yours??
posted on August 2, 2001 10:41:18 PM newHi Kraftdinner I gave my husband strict instructions years ago that if I go first he's supposed to put "I told you I was sick" on my stone... I've always loved that one too!
posted on August 3, 2001 03:06:14 AM newy headstone will read simply: -30 -
lol! that's a good one. for those not involved in publishing/journalism, that's what's written to show it's the end of the story on the copy sent to be typeset.
posted on August 3, 2001 04:07:34 AM new"See you on the other side."
I once read a gravestone that said something along the lines of "Where you are now, so once was I. Where I am now, one day you'll be..." There was more to it, and I wish I could remember how it read exactly, because it was like a poem. It just went on to say that you should cherish your time here before you cross over. It was in a cemetery in Peru, Indiana. I remember feeling very startled when I read it, because I had never seen anything like that before. Kind of gave me the creeps.
posted on August 3, 2001 04:35:00 AM newMuriel: There are many versions of that epitaph as it was a popular tombstone engraving in the past. Here are some:
My Dear Friends as You Pass By
As You are Now, So Once Was I.
As I am Now, You Soon Must Be.
Prepare Yourselves to Follow Me.
and
As you pass by
and cast an eye
as you are now
so once was I.
and
Pause, stranger, when you pass me by,
For as you are, so once was I.
As I am now, so will you be.
Then prepare unto death, and follow me.
and
For as you are, so once was I.
As you are now, once so was I
As I am now, so you will be.
Embrace ye death and follow me.
posted on August 3, 2001 08:42:40 AM newHere lies our Anna Done to death by a banana It wasn't the fruit that laid her low But the skin of the thing that made her go.
posted on August 3, 2001 08:49:07 AM new
On a more somber note, I saw this inscription on a gravestone in the old Dutch Church in North Tarrytown, New York (better known to the world as Sleepy Hollow):
Hark from the tomb, a doleful voice My ears attend the cry You mortal men Come view the ground Where you shall shortly lie
posted on August 3, 2001 09:14:45 AM new
In a graveyard in Narragansett, Rhode Island, there is/was a gravestone belonging to a young woman from the 1800s named Nellie Vaughn. It bears the cryptic message:
I am watching and waiting for you.
The inscription has given rise to ghost stories, the most enduring of which portrays Nellie as a vampire. So widespread was the story that people from all around the state made pilgrimages to the cemetery late at night, especially during the Halloween season. They came out of curiosity, or to fulfill a dare, or to desecrate the stone. Finally town officials had to remove the gravestone and relocate it to the town hall for safekeeping.
But then, Rhode Island is renowned for its vampires. As late as 1892, a young girl named Mercy Brown died of consumption in the town of Exeter. Neighbors whispered that Mercy's wasting away and untimely death were the work of a vampire. And when Mercy's brother Edwin also began to exhibit symptoms of consumption after Mercy's death, the neighbors insisted that the vampire was now living in Mercy's corpse and that Mercy was visiting Edwin in the night and stealing his vitality away! So off to the cemetery they marched, a grim-faced procession of family and neighbors. Mercy had been laid to rest months ago, but they removed her body and examined it for signs of vampirism. They cut out her heart, which was said to still have some blood pooled in it. Also there were cuts on her palms, as though she had dug her fingernails into the ball of her hand.
Odd, to say the least. But not inexplicable. Mercy died in the winter, so it may simply be that her body, which was being stored in an above-ground tomb till the ground thawed, stayed fresh thanks to the wintry temperature. As for the indentations in her palm, it has been suggested that if this is evidence of anything, it's of possible premature burial rather than vampirism.
No one considered this in 1892, however. Mercy's relatives burned her heart upon a nearby stone, collected the ashes and stirred them into an elixir which they administered to her brother Edwin, who was also suffering from consumption. This was said to be a remedy for vampirism.
Edwin died later that year, regardless.
Actually, there were numerous instances of suspected "vampirism" in 19th-century Rhode Island and nearby Connecticut. It's said that newspaper clippings about Rhode Island and its vampires were found among Bram Stoker's notes for Dracula..
posted on August 3, 2001 09:19:01 AM new
I sometimes wonder if colonial stonecutters weren't a bunch of practical jokers who would take a commission for a gravestone, adorn it with one of those wiseass messages, and then with a straight face deliver it to the family, assuring them that it was all very proper.
posted on August 3, 2001 09:38:01 AM new
Here lies the body of William Wiseman.
He comes no more to trouble you;
Where he's gone and how he fares
Nobody knows and nobody cares.
posted on August 3, 2001 09:49:53 AM new
If you are of a morbid bent (as my husband says I am) you will love this book.
The Browser's Book of Endings : The End of Practically Everything and Everybody
Last words, last will & testaments, extinctions, burials & epitaphs, famous deaths, executions, plagues, and more just amazing stuff.
I'd quote you some stuff from my copy, but after I've read a thing, it goes to what we laughingly refer to as my "library" which consists of several thousand books in no particular order, except for my cookbooks.
posted on August 3, 2001 11:26:55 AM new
All joking aside it is kind of a hard thing to do-- to summon up a life in just a few words. We have a temporary stone on our sons grave because I haven't been able to finish that part of things. This is what we are thinking about now... something like:
"We love you to the sky and back
and to the sun and back
and to the moon and back again
and around the world 367 times."
That is something we have always said to our kids at night before they go to sleep so it seems fitting.
But honestly it is really hard to finish that. Talk about final.
