Final Reflection

Shelly Wombles
Marcha Hunley
27 August 2009



The Cemetery in Society: A Spring Grove Reflection
A cemetery is a place of honor, respect, and homage to those that have passed. It is a place for the living as much as for the dead. Cemeteries are lessons in history. We educate our children about duty and ritual. We celebrate marriages and lives gone. They are representative of the cyclical nature of life and the duality intrinsic to our world. We all live and die, our bodies mortal, the soul possible immortal. We are reminded of our connection with the earth that we are from it and eventually return to it again. We visit those at rest and at peace and take part of that with us. We walk among the deceased and become aware of life. In our praise of them we find dignity within. A cemetery offers closure. A cemetery serves to be a vessel for us to open our minds to something bigger than ourselves, yet something we are a part of. It is a village of human memories. The beautiful park setting of Spring Grove is intentionally and meticulously laid out. We commune with nature, escape from the city- the everyday life just as the first people to come here did. Marcha told us that Spring Grove arose out of cholera and industry. The founders wanted to be proud of their design and accomplishment, to set a high standard for grave yards, and to uphold a strong sense of civility. Through all of these efforts, we have all of that and more. A place of such beauty and importance transcends a cemetery into a park, an idea into a higher purpose, a piece of land into a community where everyone has connection. In a world of chaos we can go to find quite strength in our legacies, our society, our families, ourselves. We sit with our losses, actual and figurative.
The future is undetermined, will we build upwards; have skyscrapers with small boxes of ash to commemorate our dead? Regardless of location, we need ritual to make sense of our finality. We need a sanctuary to hold our loved ones, to hold our prayers and thoughts, and to hold us to a greater sense of what we are, to what we will become.
I have found an extensive amount of respect for what I have come to associate with Spring Grove and cemeteries alike. Cincinnati is better because of it; we have a beautiful place of distinction that we should feel proud of. Through image after image of icons, I appreciate a wider view of what holds precedence in others’ lives. Every site is unique and deserving from the small unmarked deteriorating grave to the massive embellished mausoleum. Not a person on this planet has disconnection from death, and so the amount to which a cemetery accepts and encompasses everyone is a true lesson in understanding and acceptance. With a shift in my perspective, the discussions we have had will carry with me and hopefully can provide awareness of the big picture when I am sleep walking and forget to appreciate this life.