The Rev, Paul Graves: Look past the headstones to those they represent

While I was pastor of the Sandpoint United Methodist Church, my monthly newsletter column was titled “Graves’ Undertakings.”

It satisfied my twisted delight in wordplay, plus it let me undertake most any topic I chose. I still like the title’s mildly macabre humor.

What brings this column heading to mind is my recent trip to two cemeteries within three days.

The first occurred when I drove my dad to the Seattle area to visit family members, both living and deceased.

On Monday, we went to a very large and beautifully landscaped cemetery in north Seattle. There, we visited the burial sites of Dad’s parents, his maternal grandparents and his sister.

After returning to this area, we drove to the much smaller and less lush cemetery in Kellogg on Thursday and visited my mother’s gravesite.

I’ve just given you the basic facts of our sentimental journey. But there is always so much more to any sentimental journey, particularly one to a cemetery (or two).

Facts alone leave so much out of our stories, and usually the best parts. So please indulge me while I fill in my cemeteries’ story just a little.

Dad’s parents were also my very special grandparents. They played a great part in who and what I became.

I never knew Dad’s grandparents (they died in 1923).

Grandpa Ivy was a Methodist pastor in Wisconsin. They lived in Oshkosh at the time of their deaths but chose to be buried in Seattle because of the area’s beauty.

As for our trip to Kellogg, Dad and I went to visit Mom’s gravesite on the second anniversary of her death. Folks often tend to make that kind of pilgrimage on a death-anniversary, even if they have visited only a day or two before.

Our trip paled in pomp and circumstance when compared to the worldwide recognition of the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death last week. But our journeys of love and respect to both cemeteries were very important for us, just as the various gestures of love and respect were important for those who remembered Diana.

As Dad and I wandered through the Seattle cemetery, we searched for gravesites we hadn’t seen in too many years. I began to look differently at the gravestones I was checking out.

At first, I looked just for family names. I ended up looking at names I never knew and wondered about who they really were.

I hoped they had families and friends who still visited them on the anniversaries of their deaths, and also at other times. I hoped their stories were still being shared with people who never knew the deceased but felt like they missed something special because they had never known the person who died.

I’m sure your memories are your own unique, bittersweet mix of suffering and joy.

The question I invite you to undertake is this: Do you experience your memories as suffering born out of deep regret or suffering born out of gratitude? I think the difference can be important.

Memories fed only by regrets can often calcify into rigid dogma, trapping people in the past.

Memories nourished by gratitude are free to become doxologies – attitudes and acts of gratitude in the present and hope for the future.

The next time you visit a cemetery, look beyond the names on the headstones. Look into the known and imagined lives of those people.

Whatever you see, see it with gratitude.

Come to think of it, this insight eyesight is pretty effective when we remember people who are still alive as well.