Headstones

I had a thought today as I took part of my walk through the local downtown cemetery. Part of the deal with headstones and grave markings has to do with ancestor worship; that you visit the grave and invoke the spirit of the deceased, as if the spirits actually exist in some disembodied realm. The headstone/ grave marker serves as an anchor point from which to summon the spirit, to honor the dead, to placate kin groups of deceased, to make sure that bad voodoo is not called down upon the living etc. So the function seems to be not only to remember the dead, but to have a channel, as it were, to tune into the dead’s station and thereby honor them still. Dishonor and lack of memory would then call out the wrath of the dead etc.

But, you remember the dead anyway, no marker is necessary for that, and if their remains are not actually there, if there is no skeleton or even ashes, then the marker really serves no purpose in the modern world, as we do not believe there are any spirits to call back. There is no head for the stone to mark when the remains are cremated.

To mark a grave is custom, it is from a time of local living, from a time of predominant superstition, when all the villagers were buried in the same cemetery and from when no one questioned the church or religion. There was good reason, you had a body, the name on the stone referenced the person, it was all real and provided connection throughout the generations. It was all salt of the earth type of stuff.

Now there is no local living, everyone has moved from the town to the city, life is modern, and people get cremated so there isn’t even recognizable remains. Cemeteries are full of markers, of strangers, from an era gone by when they would have been remembered. The church and religion have fallen from their lofty perch and there is no real evidence for anything they are saying concerning an afterlife. It is total indemonstrable fantasy.

It just seems to be an anachronism, something out of step, out of time, to have a headstone. It doesn’t gain you eternity nor favor with the gods, or help call you back when family members visit your plot, your family remembers you anyway.

I guess what cemeteries and markers are, are signs of a final passage that all are destined to make, you were here, along with the billions of others who have come and gone and are now forgotten entirely, absolutely unknown. There is a void, death, an abyss from which none return and that is stunning and I guess worthy of a marker in the face of such a great unknown.