A few random thoughts on cemeteries

When i was a little girl and would walk through the cemetery this grave always fascinated me because I thought there were doorbells on it. I would always push these little buttons on the sides of the doors and want someone to answer. See I have been fascinated with cemeteries for a long time.

Notice the chair in this area. I guess this family figured you might like to sit and visit for awhile.

Notice the name on this one! Maybe some long lost Damman relatives who added an extra N to the end of our name. These Dammanns were well off I would say by the size of the stone.






I have always been fascinated with the history that can be found in our cemeteries. There are two cemeteries in Watertown that I walk through quite often. They are on my walking route so it isn't like I go out of my way to walk through them. One of them is the Lutheran one where my dad is buried along with my grandmas, grandpas, and countless other ancestors as well as friends. To some people cemeteries may seem a morbid place to enjoy but I find them comforting with many stories to tell. First off, I know where those people are and it is not in the ground. I can speak for my relatives when I say they are in heaven walking and talking with the Lord and having the time of their lives. To borrow from MercyMe, "I Can Only Imagine..." The gravestones are just markers with names and dates on them. It boggles my mind to think about all those people. I see graves of babies who lived only a day or less, mothers and children buried together who all died on the same day, same year and I think how sad for those left behind and then I wonder was it an illness that killed them all or maybe a disaster, I see graves of people who lived to be one hundred. Some gravestones are so huge and ornamental indicating that was a family with money while some are just small markers in the ground showing the last loving thing the family did for their loved one using all the money they had. I always wish that the gravestones would tell us what caused their death. That would take a lot of mystery out of the cemetery. But then what would my dad's say, "Kenny checked out early, not sure why, except that God wanted him home." And really that is all we need to know about any of these people. The other thing that I think about is no matter what one has in life (lots of money and material items or barely anything) it really does not make a bit of difference in the end. Our bodies all end up in the same place with some type of stone marking that place and maybe people walk by and look at it and wonder about us and maybe they don't care one bit. Maybe we will have relatives who will put some flowers on our grave or maybe all our relatives are long gone and our grave will have no decorations. In the end it really does not matter. What does matter is that we believed in Jesus as our Savior and went to heaven.
Whenever we drive or walk by a cemetery, John says the same thing, "People are dying to get in there." It is a joke I have learned to anticipate and enjoy.

Well Tizzy, you will be too young to appreciate cemeteries for a while, but I will show you where our relatives are buried and I will share stories about them as we walk by their gravestones. And then I will make sure that you know about heaven and Jesus and that dying is really a very joyous time for a Christian.