Taphophilia.(dot) Com - EDITORIAL: Schneider: Cemetery a place for both dead and living

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EDITORIAL: Schneider: Cemetery a place for both dead and living

Written by DeadGirl
Sunday, 30 May 2004
In a column published Memorial Day weekend 2001, I wrote about getting to know some of my neighbors in Alaiedon Township. There's Hulda Eifert (1867-1900), buried next door to Dewey Eifert (1899-1900). Mother and child, I guessed. There's Jacob Dingman, a man of precision, who died Oct. 28, 1880, "aged 81 years, 1 mo., 16 ds." There's Colonel Burgess (1844-1928), who outlived both his wives, Anzie (1848-1882) and Rose (1864-1927), and three of his children: Elbert (1868-1874), Alice (1874-75) and Ernest (1876-1901). There's a whole colony of the passed-throughs, resting peacefully. They mind their own business, without being standoffish. They dwell amid slabs of stone and ancient cedars, in a well-tended country cemetery, a quarter mile down the road from us earthbound folks. Appealing place I liked the neighborhood of the dead from the day I stumbled upon it and started mingling. It became the automatic destination of my morning walks. The atmosphere there was soothing, certainly. The experience was always a calming pre-emptive strike on what was bound to be a hectic day. But it wasn't just the tranquility that so often made me late for breakfast. It was much more than that. In the silence that was solemn, but never morbid, I accepted an invitation to reflect upon and interpret the subtle clues, the obscure hints, the whispers that were almost audible. And, thus, I got to know the residents. Based on the scant evidence available to me, I speculated, imagined, theorized, pulled together pieces of a puzzle. Elizabeth Lamb (1799-1866) ... Phineas Peabody (1823-1898) ... Ira Rosseter (1828-1885) and his wife, Olive (1830-1914) ... Disconnect I imagined in those days that the information I was gathering, though fascinating, was largely irrelevant to my life. Oh, I understood, in an intellectual way, that the folks at Leek Cemetery differed from me in only one aspect - time - but, characteristic of the living, I made the connection in abstract terms, at arm's length. The living never quite accept their destiny. About 15 months after that first Memorial Day column, my daughter died. Only under those circumstances did I realize that all my visits to the cemetery - my many encounters with the pioneers, my growing familiarity with the society - amounted to a scouting mission. Knowing what I knew, feeling what I felt, there was never the slightest question as to where my daughter would go. There were few things about the tragedy that seemed right. The cemetery was one of them. She's not really there, of course. But, in a sense, she is - surrounded, coincidentally, by some people with whom she might identify: Christopher Kranz (1980-1997); Jenelle H. En-yart (1983-2002); Amanda Kay Awalt (1980-2000) - all posing the same difficult question. My visits to the cemetery aren't the same now, but they're not all that different, either. I still mingle. More than ever, I puzzle over the clues and implications. I confirm my reservation, now etched in granite: John B., Jr. (1949- ). http://www.lsj.com/columnists/schneider/040530_john_1b.html

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries