How do people choose what goes on their tombstones? Do they sit down with a pen and paper one day and say, “I want an etching of something significant and a list of the relationships I’ve had and the family I’m no longer going to see.” How do people make that choice?
Julia A. Schaeffer. Julia has a rather lively display marking her resting place. Well, as lively as tombstones can get. A short, stout cross bearing her name standing on a pedestal, rosary beads etched into the stone. On the opposite side there are no beads, there is only a train. The surviving relatives: brothers, sisters, parents, one can only assume, have placed some of their own memorials around the grave. Roses, an angel with a faded painting of a garden adorning its robe: all objects with personal significance which mere visitors will never fully understand.
1964-2004. Julia was only 40 when she died. Did she have warning of it? Could she sit down and plan the designs, quotes, and etchings out? Or was it sudden? Was her family left to struggle with the phrases and pictures that would be seen by any and all visitors? Was her family charged with the task of deciding how she would be remembered?
How do people choose what goes on their tombstones? No matter how we choose, the etchings will become weathered and fade away. All we can tell is that someone is here. Name, age, likes, dislikes, none of that will register. We probably won’t even register that there were likes and dislikes or care about the name. All we’ll know is that the symbols someone chose to adorn their resting place with are gone. The choice of what they would be, ultimately, did not matter.
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