Mysterious, morbid and...magical!

The other day I took a walk through one of my very favorite places in the world to walk.  It's an old, old cemetery, and it's truly stunningly beautiful.

My husband's father used to run it, so I was often there when I was younger, but like a lot of really amazing things, I took it for granted because I was young.  I always thought it was beautiful.  But it wasn't till I moved away, to another state - and came home again, that I realized how special of a place it is.  Like much about my historic hometown, it took leaving and returning to truly appreciate it.

There are several cemeteries in town that consist of flat or hilly acres in the shape of a square; they are treeless and full of headstones.  But this one is different.  This one has gently rolling hills with meandering paths, shade trees everywhere, a creek, a pond with a bench overlooking and some of the most beautiful and interesting statues and monuments you could find.  It's a historic cemetery in a small city that used to be quite prosperous, and full of well-to-do people who invested in their afterlives like small-town pharaohs.

Did I mention the stone chapel with the Tiffany windows?  Or the old hydrangea trees and lilacs that burst into bloom in the spring and fall?

Beautiful.  Tranquil.  Slightly creepy.  Silent.

I love wandering through these old crumbling monuments with only the sounds of birds and the insects in the air.  There wasn't a person in sight up on this hill.

Who was she, and how did this statue appear as a real woman?

Someday I'll just be a name on a stone too...

I wonder how the family who built this tomb made their fortune?

The dappled sunlight falling on the hillside gives such a romantic feeling to this place.

Jesus with open arms.

I love this one.

I spent a happy hour-and-a-half just wandering around, and only made my way through a fourth of the cemetery.  The newer section has no trees; I assume it makes for easier mowing and upkeep, and, understandably, no one seems interested anymore in investing many thousands of dollars on fancy burial mausoleums.

The old part of the cemetery has the same appeal to me that old houses have: detail and architecture that just can't be found in anything new.  Likewise, new gravestones remind me a lot of new buildings - a bunch of gray squares that each look like all of the others.

Once this statue was a living woman.  I imagine she walked through this cemetery just as I do.

It wasn't just the sunlit paths or the beautiful monuments.  While it was fun reading the old poetry and inscriptions on the stones, I also walked the perimeter, enjoying all the wildflowers.  I used my phone app to identify a lot of interesting plants; there were so many!

The swamp milkweed was blooming all around the pond.

It may be invasive, but it's still lovely to look at!

Cemeteries always fill me with a sense of peace.  They seem like a gentle reminder to me that life is short, and instead of causing sadness it almost makes me feel a sense of relief.  Relief that whispers that all those things I think are so important/distressing right now...all those little kingdoms we get caught up in building....in the end, none of them matter.  Not at all.  Dust to dust.

In the end, all that matters is having peace with God.

And in the meantime, I'm grateful to have such a historic, peaceful place to roam around.  A place to feel the presence of God.