The Problems of Being a Grave Hunter in Winter

I have run into a small snafu with my project.

Apparently in winter it gets cold, dark, and snows a whole heck of a lot. You'd think I would have noticed this before. Just slipped my mind, I guess.

All of this sub-zeroness makes me less than enthusiastic about hunting around for interesting or notable tombstones. But fear not! As I stated earlier, grave rubbings are but one of the purposes of this blog. I am a huge nerd, and as a huge nerd I love research. So, rather than hibernate for the winter, I will do a bit of research, and hope to bring you interesting articles and tidbits as I delve. I may still do some rubbings before the snow melts, but I'm going to wait for it to stop being so effing cold first.

For today, I wanted to highlight an interesting article I ran across a few weeks ago. In How to Read a Headstone, Linda Falkenstein explores the meaning behind common symbols found on tombstones, for example:

• Ever see a bunch of rocks sitting on a gravestone? This apparently comes from a Jewish Tradition, used as a way of showing someone has been to visit.
• Shaking hands symbolizes a parting with early life, or, if one hand in obviously feminine a farewell to a spouse.
• Ivy is frequently found on tombstones, since its verdant foliage symbolizes immortality. It can also mean fidelity or friendship as it clings to surfaces.
• Lamps, as symbols of wisdom, are often found on tombstones of educators.
• Acorns and Oak leaves are symbols of fruitfulness and endurance, although it leads one to wonder how fruitful the dead can really be. (Unless a fruit tree happens to grow on top of them, I guess)

Falkenstein also wrote an interesting article, Where the Bodies Are Buried, in which the author takes a trip through a cemetery, photographing and writing about the more interesting headstones she finds. Apparently I am not alone in my morbid interest on the subject.

Of Reality, Life and Death (Part II)

So, continuing on...

Using the intellectual parameters my ethics professor set for us all those years ago, imagine we can know for certain there is no God.  There is no heaven or hell.  A lifetime of self-sacrifice will never be rewarded, nor will a lifetime of self-service be punished. 

This model was deeply troubling to me at first, and it still is to some degree.  Imagine a grieving loved one who's only solace is the knowledge that someday they will be reunited with those they have lost.  Or a woman who has watched her rapist go free, and can only console herself with the thought that though there may be no justice in this world, there will be justice in the next.  In our intellectual experiment, both of these people may be left without any hope.  And one may further pose the question, without a God, what is there it keep human kind honest, so to speak?  Would people be more selfish, more self serving, without the rewards and punishments a belief in a higher power can offer?

I guess I never really contemplated the question on the level of all humanity.  I've always felt that I can't really control how other people behave, so I'd best examine and change myself if I can.  Hence I feel I came to an answer more about how my morality would be affected without a belief in a higher power, as opposed to how it would affect society at large.

By the time I was posed this question, I had firmly decided on Catholicism as my faith of choice.  It was a large part of my life and world view:  I went to mass on Sundays, was an alter server, partcipated in bible study groups and church service trips.  But when I came to a crisis, in my life and my faith, this question came back to me: what is a moral system, a life outlook, a world view without a God?  What purpose does life have if this is it?

I have since abandoned my belief in a higher power.   It seems funny to me now, but many of the Buddhist principles I learned from my father carry a special meaning for me now.  Buddhists believe in the beauty of transience: a flower, a fine morning, a life, is made more beautiful by the fact that it is temporary.  And that question in the back of my mind makes my experiences even richer: I hold my son just a little tighter, kiss my husband just a little longer because maybe this is the only time I will ever have with them.  And if I were to imagine that this time and this time only is what we each are given, how can I justify selfishness?  Anger?  If I were to be unkind, I would be taking away something irreplaceable.

I wouldn't say I believe in nothing.   I just, in the words of Clarence Darrow, "do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure".  But that uncertainty is always what pushes me to live the best life I can.  Because maybe, just maybe, this is all I get.

Of Reality, Life, and Death (Part I)

Ladies and Gentleman, I proudly present to you your daily dose of awesome:


Video Link

This awesome video is from an awesome website called Symphony of Science, hosting a total of six equally awesome videos about science, our world, and the universe. (Did I mention it was awesome?) Thanks to these videos, my two year old can now identify several planets, and knows the words "galaxy","nebula", and "molecule". We're working on "large hadron collider".

However for the sake of being relevant to my blog and its initial purpose, I will draw my perceptive reader's attention to one particular line of the video, courtesy of Richard Dawkins:

"Matter flows from place to place, and momentarily comes together to be you. Some people find that thought disturbing. I find the reality thrilling."

In high school we had a history assignment to interview someone of a different faith. This proved a challenge for many of my waspier classmates in a rural Wisconsin town which truly had more cows than people. My life was made quite simple, however, by the fact that my father was a practicing Buddhist. I "interviewed" him sitting on the couch in our living room, where he gave me a basic overview of the various Buddhist precepts, his own mediation practice, the belief in reincarnation, leading to the inevitable conclusion of "and if a Buddhist is diligent in his or her practice then over the course of many lifetimes it is hoped they can realize their own Buddha nature and achieve nirvana."

My next question was "Well, then what?"

My father didn't quite understand. "What do you mean, 'then what'?"

"What happens after you reach nirvana?"

"Well nothing really. You are taken out of the cycle of life and death."

I got quite worked up over this idea. "So, you just stop? There isn't a heaven or something? All that work and you just 'cease to be'?"

My dad laughed. "Well, yeah."

My exact words were, "Well that sucks", and I walked away from the conversation convinced that my decision to follow my mother's Christian practice was the correct one. At least we got heaven for a lifetime of getting up early on Sunday mornings.

At fifteen, I truly wasn't able to contemplate the idea that maybe there was no afterlife. It was, as Dawkins so rightly put it, "disturbing". I couldn't conceive of "just stopping".

Later, in a college ethics class, my professor posed an interesting question to a group of mainly catholic students. What if there were no God? No afterlife, heaven or hell? Would there still be any reason to be moral if you knew for certain that your deeds would never be rewarded (or punished)? He never pushed us to answer the question, just contemplate it. And for me, it rattled around in my brain for several years before I was adequately able to come to my own conclusion.

Stay tuned, part II to follow. (And I promise, sooner than later.)

First Attempt, Part II

Looking back, my grandfather's death was one of the defining moments of my early childhood, and shaped my views into early adulthood.  I can't quite explain why my grandfather's death had such a profound impact on me. Lots of children loose grandparents early in their lives; I was only eight when he died, and really have few concrete memories of him.  Still, I don't know that I would have been the same person were it not for this one event.  In this post, I will try to articulate what it is that his death affected me so strongly. 

Let me begin with who my grandfather was.  If there ever was a hero of our family, it was my grandfather.  His life was epic, legendary even, and his exploits made wonderful bedtime tales for a six year old.  Roy was an aerospace engineer and inventor who worked on the Apollo 11 mission.  Some of his inventions were in the Smithsonian, some were still on the moon.  He worked in Houston during the week, but flew his private plane home to Minneapolis on the weekend to be with his family.  After leaving NASA, he built and owned several businesses designing motorcycle equipment and even a patented spray gun, for which he received a prestigious engineering award. (The spray gun company, which he owned until the end of his life, still exists under its original name Mattson Spray Equipment.  I got a bit choked up to find it had a website.  I think his motto "Only the finish is breathtaking" exemplifies my Grandfather's belief that hard work was behind every beautiful outcome.)

I found stories of his family life just as enthralling as those of his professional exploits.  I will never forget the story of my grandfather discipline my uncle after he had pushed my mother off her bike, skinning her knees and elbows.  My grandfather was a completely against corporal punishment when it came to children, but he was not without a sense of the dramatic.  He ordered my mother to lower all the shades, and took off his belt.  I will never forget my mother's description of my grandfather: towering over my uncle, slapping his belt into his palm.  The story ended with both my uncle and my mother begging my grandfather not to hit him, and my uncle solemnly swearing to leave my mother alone, upon pain of belting.

I remember my mother telling me all these at a young age, but I don't remember exactly when she told me he was sick.  There was just this general knowledge in the family of why my mother was leaving every weekend to make the five hour drive to the twin cities.  It wasn't until I was older, though, that I learned my grandfather's prostate cancer was diagnosed as terminal fairly soon after he sought treatment for it (the survival rate being quite low in the early 90's).  Hence my mother's drive to spend every last moment she could with him.

The call came early one November morning.  Grandpa had been admitted to the hospital, and the doctors believed he had reached the end.  I remember being bundled into the car in my pajamas before school had even started.  It was right before thanksgiving, and I recall being half awake and wondering if I was going to miss our thanksgiving party at school.  Hours later we visited Grandpa for the last time in his hospital bed.  My mom said later she wished she hadn't taken us to the hospital, that it would have been better for our last memories of him to be smiling and somewhat healthy than sick and sedated. 

I don't remember when my mom told me he was sick, but I do remember when she told me he had died.  The phone woke us all up early thanksgiving morning in our hotel room.  My mom was on it for less than a minute.  I asked her what had happened.  She turned to me and said "Kyra, do you know what 'passed away' means?".  And he was gone.

To this day I ask myself why it should affect me so much.  My personal memories of my grandfather are few and fleeting: his hands, dancing on his shoes, the night he taught me to like milk in my mashed potatoes.  Perhaps it was the hole he left  in the lives of those around him.  The pain I saw my mother go through.  The way our family dissolved without him.  As I grew up, the Mattson family came apart at the seams with bickering and infighting my mother swears my grandfather never would have tolerated.  Our hero, our legend was gone, with nothing to replace him. 

But there was, and is, a silver lining to these events.  From my grandfather's death I learned to wholeheartedly appreciated the transient nature of life.  I know that those I love will only be with me for a short time, and even in the hard times I can love them the better for that knowledge.  And I have seen first hand the pain that's left when someone dies.  And in my darkest moments it has made me swear that I would never, ever take my own life.  I couldn't knowingly leave that kind of pain behind me.

I owe all this to my grandfather, his life and his death.  Both have made me who I am.  Grandpa, I dedicate this post to you. 

Roy D. Mattson

1927-1993

"What He Dreamed, He Invented"

The First Attempt, Part I

So, here is my first attempt at "the project".

I have been kinda putting off this post, because I'm not too terribly proud of it. But I will try to look at it as a learning experience, rather than a finished product. (metaphor for life, perhaps?)

As I believe I stated before, I am not by nature an artistic person. So there will be be a bit of learning that goes into the process. I showed my rubbing to my sister-in-law, who was an art major, and she was able to immediately suggest techniques which will improve my future attempts. Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

This is a rubbing of my Grandfather's Grave, Roy D. Mattson. I realize it is kind of hard to read. I'll get to that in a minute. His death was really the first time I ever had to contemplate the notion of mortality, so I thought it fitting that his grave be my first attempt. However, I am slightly regretting my choice now: he was such an important person in my early childhood, I wish I had waited till I could do a decent job with his rubbing.

Moving On.

Let's go over what I've learned:
1) A toddler is a poor expedition partner.
2) I used charcoal pencils for this rubbing. Whole sticks of charcoal would have worked better, eliminating some of the lines and making it easier to read. (See 1993 vs Roy D.)
3) Another difficulty with pencils for rubbing is they become dull very quickly, and if you neglect to bring a sharpener, you find quickly yourself SOL.
4) I also experimented with various types of charcoal, since I really had no clue what would work best. As I quickly discovered, the softest gave the crispest, clearest lines.
5) The angle of the rubbing also has an effect: vertical works well, horizontal is pretty illegible (notice the shift from left to right on the top part of the rubbing). I think I got the best effect from a 45 degree angle.
6) For presentation purposes, I think need a tripod for my camera, and better lighting.

My sister-in-law was also concerned with my choice of paper for the rubbing, namely newsprint. She mentioned that it degrades quickly, hence it only being used as sketch paper by most artists. However, for me its thinness was ideal for the rubbings, and the contrast comes through beautifully. I hesitate to use anything more substantial for this reason. Any suggestions for a paper that would hold up better over the long term, but is still fairly thin?

Stay tuned for: First Attempt, Part II.

Soldier's Remembrance

I was going to post my first rubbing this week, but this just happened to pop into my reader from one of my favorite blogs, Relentlessly Optimistic:

This is the grave of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich, the first gay service member to speak out against the ban on gays in the military.  What a beautiful last statement to leave for the world, an eternal condemnation of the hypocrisy that was, and unfortunately still is, the military's treatment of gay soldiers. 

The Seikilos Epitaph

The more perceptive persons among you may have noticed a square of orange text in the upper left hand corner, from which I draw the title of my blog. The text is as follows:

I am an image in stone. 

Seikilos put me here, where I am forever, the symbol of eternal remembrance. 

Shine, as long as you live; do not be sad. 

For life is surely too short, and time demands its toll.

The original text happens to be in Greek, and that's only one translation among many I found.  In case you have ever tried translating ancient Greek into English, its not an easy task, hence the numerous translations.  But this was the one I liked best, so its the one I posted.  At any rate, it's all greek to me!! Hehehehe!  I love puns!

Not only do I like the sentiment conveyed in this epitaph, but it has a really profound history to go with it.  The text was originally discovered in 1883 in Turkey on a Greek grave stele (aka. ancient Greek Tombstone), and has been dated to around the first century AD-ish.  It is presumeably written by Seikilos for his dead wife, who once lay beneath it, and looks something like this:

 

But the really cool thing about this epitaph is it isn't just a poem.  Its a song.  In fact it is the oldest surviving complete musical composition (meaning music and lyrics) in the world.  The even cooler thing is that because it is complete, we can still play the song today!  Take a listen:

[Note: The first two lines of the epitaph, I am...remembrance, are spoken the composition is actually just the last two lines.  Quite short, but complete]

So there you have it, a beautiful melody written by a husband to commemorate his dead wife.  And haunting even after 2000 years.  

The Reason

So here I am at the beginning. I've been told beginnings are the hardest, and the only good way is to handle them is to, well, begin. So here goes.

In fourth grade, my awesome teacher designed an awesome project for us to learn about basic research methods and a bit about the history of our town. Our town had an old pioneer cemetery where many of the town founders were buried. We were to do a grave rubbing of one of the tombstones, then find out as much about the person as possible and present it in an oral report. This was pre-google/wikipedia/awesomeness-of-internet, so it would of been quite challenging for a group of fourth graders, but one of the things I liked so much about him was he was never afraid of handing us a challenge.

I was one of those kids that loved school, and in most aspects could excel without really trying. Normally I would have jumped at such a project. However, this project was assigned six months after my grandfather died, and just two months after the death of one of my friends. Just the word "cemetery" terrified me. My mom called my teacher. And my awesome teacher recognized that after attending two funerals in six months, I might be just a bit hesitant to do a project that so closely related to dead people. He found me an alternative.

So what brings me to this point? What is the reason for this blog?

When I approached my husband with this idea, his original response was "Gee, that's morbid." I was at home with my son, then about six months old, and bored out of my mind. My husband's suggestion to occupy my time was to start a project. After some thought, I settled on grave rubbings. Why I settled on this subject matter will probably be the topic of several blog posts, but the short answer is this: I feel like I am facing that fear I felt all those years ago, something I should have done then but couldn't, something I can do now. That, and when my husband proposed the idea, my son and I would take daily walks down a bike path that went right through an old cemetery. As a child I would have been terrified, yet every time I walked through it with my son I found it strangely peaceful. Thus the idea was born. And now, with my son approaching two, I have finally gotten around to it. (Did I mention beginning was hard?)

On this blog I hope to present my rubbings, such as they may be, in an artistic fashion. I'm still working on the "artistic" part. Ideally I would like to find some information concerning the people on the stones, reviving my old fourth grade project. But I also wish to look at some deeper issues: how we look at life and death, deal with our mortality, remember our loved ones.

And with those lofty goals in mind, here we go...