From time to time I like to stroll through cemeteries. Morbid? Yes. But it's also oddly calming - for a while. Then you start noticing names and dates on the tomb stones and you start to realize that one day, you too will be taking a long dirt nap.
We're all going to die. It's that whole cycle-of-life thing. But my strolls through cemeteries bring me a jolt of reality. No matter what your religious beliefs, it's what you do between the time you come into this world and the time you leave it that matters.
Something that struck me was the "titles" that some people had on their tomb stones.
FATHER
WIFE
SON
Surely there is more to us than that? How about DEDICATED PHILANTHROPIST? Or maybe TALENTED TEACHER?
WIFE just seems so ... archaic. Then again, I guess we live in a different time. Maybe more recent tomb stones will read, JOHN SMITH, AVERAGE BANKER & FRUSTRATED ARTIST. Or JOE SOAP, AMATEUR ARSONIST & CARTOONIST.
Either way, cemeteries are very comforting places, as they should be. And maybe that's why I like to take an hour or two to stroll through them, looking at tomb stones and summing up people's lives in one or two very short lines.
When it's my time to go, I want my tomb stone to say, HE CAME. HE SAW. HE ALMOST CONQUERED. INTREPID WORLD TRAVELER, LOVER OF THE SIMPLE LIFE, FRIEND TO ANIMALS, AND CONSTANT EXPLORER OF THE GOOD LIFE. BROTHER, UNCLE, SON, FORNICATOR. And I want the date to read something cool like 1492-???
It would have to be a pretty bloody big tomb stone to fit all that in though.
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