The Field of the Forgotten
An article on PennLive this morning relates the story of a cemetery in Dauphin County here in Pennsylvania. This field is checkered with numerous grave markers eroded clean of most all identifying information. Names and dates, both gone. The forgotten have also become the unknown.
Posted on facebook, the article gets similar reactions over and over.
"That's really sad."
"This is so sad. Those people were once someone's children, maybe someones [sic] father or mother!!"
"It's so sad to think of someone as 'unwanted or forgotten'......smh"
While I do get a touch of that sad feeling, ultimately I disagree. I have one thought:
Why do people think they get to live forever?
Ironically, Christians (Abrahamic religions in general) and atheists agree that when you die, that's it for this world. Perhaps if you've reached greatness like George Washington or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., you get to have your name remembered in history books and statues. But for most of us, our only hope to live on is much more subtle. It's teaching our children how to treat people. It's showing compassion to someone who doesn't deserve it. It's sending a few bucks to a foreign country to keep an orphan fed. And no, that's not keeping our name alive, but keeping a belief alive. A belief of putting others before yourself.
We don't live forever. This story is exactly why I decided years ago that when I'm gone I want to be cremated and scattered places I loved. I do not want a stone marking where my former body sits rotting. I do not want to pressure those I leave behind to travel to that stone to feel close to me. I want them to feel close to me when they come across scripture I discussed with them. I want them to feel close to me when they cheer at a baseball game. I want them to feel close to me when they walk the fields during hunting season.
Yes, it's sad that time has worn these stones smooth. But a marker won't keep us in the memories of those we loved. Our actions will.
Posted on facebook, the article gets similar reactions over and over.
"That's really sad."
"This is so sad. Those people were once someone's children, maybe someones [sic] father or mother!!"
"It's so sad to think of someone as 'unwanted or forgotten'......smh"
While I do get a touch of that sad feeling, ultimately I disagree. I have one thought:
Why do people think they get to live forever?
Ironically, Christians (Abrahamic religions in general) and atheists agree that when you die, that's it for this world. Perhaps if you've reached greatness like George Washington or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., you get to have your name remembered in history books and statues. But for most of us, our only hope to live on is much more subtle. It's teaching our children how to treat people. It's showing compassion to someone who doesn't deserve it. It's sending a few bucks to a foreign country to keep an orphan fed. And no, that's not keeping our name alive, but keeping a belief alive. A belief of putting others before yourself.
We don't live forever. This story is exactly why I decided years ago that when I'm gone I want to be cremated and scattered places I loved. I do not want a stone marking where my former body sits rotting. I do not want to pressure those I leave behind to travel to that stone to feel close to me. I want them to feel close to me when they come across scripture I discussed with them. I want them to feel close to me when they cheer at a baseball game. I want them to feel close to me when they walk the fields during hunting season.
Yes, it's sad that time has worn these stones smooth. But a marker won't keep us in the memories of those we loved. Our actions will.
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