Tombstone Marker Quotes

She could just imagine, all her friends and family mourning around her grave. The tombstone would read Kari Wagner, Died of Sheer Stupidity. It would be almost as bad to have her grave marker read Died of Terminal Bedroom Boredom.

A chill wind blew across the frozen water. There was no marker to show where the land ended and the sea began, except for the blocks of solid sea, where the water had frosted over, shifted, then frozen again. Tiny slabs of ice squatted, stacked like tombstones. We walked out onto the crusted water. The ice groaned under our feet, the rumble of an Arctic bear, warning as the dark water beneath shifted. We stopped. My heart beat in my throat. I waited for the crack of the ice, the roar of the water. The world held its breath.

The Barkley Cove graveyard trailed off under tunnels of dark oaks. Spanish moss hung in long curtains, creating cavelike sanctuaries for old tombstones - the remains of a family here, a loner there, in no order at all. Fingers of gnarled roots had torn and twisted gravestones into hunched and nameless forms. Markers of death all weathered into nubbins by elements of life. In the distance, the sea and sky sang too bright for this serious ground.

His oldest child from his second marriage, Matthew, stayed up all the night before he was buried, putting his father’s history on a wooden tombstone. He began with his father’s name on the first line, and on the next, he put the years ofhis father’s coming and going. Then all the things he knew his father had been. Husband. Father. Farmer. Grandfather. Patroller. Tobacco Man. Tree Maker. The letters ofthe words got smaller and smaller as the boy, not quite twelve, neared the bottom ofthe wood because he had never made a headstone for anyone before so he had not compensated for all that he would have to put on it. The boy filled up the whole piece ofwood and at the end of the last line he put a period. His father’s grave would remain, but the wooden marker would not last out the year. The boy knew better than to put a period at the end ofsuch a sentence. Something that was not even a true and proper sentence, with subject aplenty, but no verb to pull it all together. A sentence, Matthew’s teacher back in Virginia had tried to drum into his thick Kinsey head, could live without a subject, but it could not live without a verb.

The Barkley Cove graveyard trailed off under tunnels of dark oaks. Spanish moss hung in long curtains, creating cavelike sanctuaries for old tombstones—the remains of a family here, a loner there, in no order at all. Fingers of gnarled roots had torn and twisted gravestones into hunched and nameless forms. Markers of death all weathered into nubbins by elements of life. In the distance, the sea and sky sang too bright for this serious ground.

The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead... ...When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin. It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus... ...Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.

Before we left the chapel, I caught up with my grandfather to make one final plea. “Grandpa,” I said, “we can’t bury Dad’s ashes.” “That’s not your decision to make.” He started to walk away, but I grabbed his sleeve, knowing it would be my last chance. “Wasn’t it his?” I asked. “He wanted to be cremated because he didn’t want to be buried. Please, let us take his ashes out to Montauk.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized that I’d made a critical mistake. My grandfather realized it, too. He associated Montauk with my father’s frivolous hobbies, such as boating and fishing, activities that had distracted him from the serious business of real estate. “Montauk,” he repeated, almost smiling. “That’s not going to happen. Get in the car.” Sunlight glinted off the marble and granite grave markers as our grandfather, his light blue eyes squinting beneath his enormous eyebrows at the brightness of the day, explained that the tombstone, which was already inscribed with his mother’s and father’s names, would be removed temporarily so my father’s name and dates could be added. As he spoke, he spread his hands wide, like a used-car salesman, bouncing on the balls of his feet, almost jaunty, knowing he was in the presence of a rube. My grandfather followed the letter of the law and then did what he wanted. After my father was cremated, they put his ashes into a metal box and buried them in the ground.

Showmen's Rest was truly something to behold. Throughout the entire yard, statues and carvings of elephants, clowns, and tight-rope walkers danced on the gray and white surfaces of tombstones and grave-markers. For the first time, Michael got the feeling that the men and women who'd been buried there were probably really happy with their final resting place. It was a touching tribute, one that honored their passion in life and that had been constructed out of love and respect.

Opening the box, they withdrew the thick plastic grave markers. His lips twitched as he scanned the epitaphs: R.I.P. Van Winkle, Dee Cayed, I.M. Gone, and Barry R. Bones. "Dracula, Fangs for the Memories," he read aloud and, chuckled. Grace held up her favorite. "Rigger Mortys. Death Grips and Holds Me Tight, But I Shall Return on Halloween Night." Tongue-in-cheek, he asked her, "What would your headstone say?" "She Threw a Great Party," came to mind. "How about yours?" "Death by Decorating.

In your care I will be released from my worries” (CIL 11.137). In a few brief sentences, this man’s colorful life, during which he passed from freedom to slavery to freedom and ultimately to prosperity, is memorialized. An aspect of life that these tombstones bring to light is the strong emotions that tied together spouses, family members, and friends. One grave marker records a husband’s grief for his young wife: “To the eternal memory of Blandina Martiola, a most blameless girl, who lived eighteen years, nine months, five days. Pompeius Catussa, a Sequanian citizen and a plasterer, dedicates this monument to his wife, who was incomparable and very kind to him. She lived with him five years, six months, eighteen days without any shadow of a fault. You who read this, go bathe in the baths of Apollo as I used to do with my wife. I wish I still could” (CIL 1.1983). The affection that some parents felt for their children is also reflected in these inscriptions: “Spirits who live in the underworld, lead innocent Magnilla through the groves and the Elysian Fields directly to your places of rest. She was snatched away in her eighth year by cruel fate while she was still enjoying the tender time of childhood. She was beautiful and sensitive, clever, elegant, sweet, and charming beyond her years. This poor child who was deprived of her life so quickly must be mourned with perpetual lament and tears” (CIL 6.21846). Some Romans seemed more concerned with ensuring that their bodies would lie undisturbed after death than with recording their accomplishments while alive. An inscription of this type states: “Gaius Tullius Hesper had this tomb built for himself, as a place where his bones might be laid. If anyone damages them or removes them from here, may he live in great physical pain for a long time, and when he dies, may the gods of the underworld deny entrance to his spirit” (CIL 6.36467). Some tombstones offer comments that perhaps preserve something of their authors’ temperaments. One terse inscription observes: “I was not. I was. I am not. I care not” (CIL 5.2893). Finally, a man who clearly enjoyed life left a tombstone that included the statement: “Baths, wine, and sex ruin our bodies. But what makes life worth living except baths, wine, and sex?” (CIL 6.15258). Perhaps one of the greatest values of these tombstones is the manner in which they record the actual feelings of individuals, and demonstrate the universality across time, cultures, and geography of basic emotions such as love, hate, jealousy, and pride. They also preserve one of the most complicated yet subtle characteristics of human beings—our enjoyment of humor. Many of the messages were plainly drafted to amuse and entertain the reader, and the fact that some of them can still do so after 2,000 years is one of the best testimonials to the humanity shared by the people of the ancient and the modern worlds.