19 May 2018 - East Thompson Cemetery

Thompson, Connecticut

It was fitting in some way that it was on that gray day, in the driving rain, that I visited that cemetery as these old burial grounds are more barren and somehow better symbolizing death than modern cemeteries. Especially those small headstones around full-size monuments.

As far as I know those small headstones - most of them with just a name - are memorializing young children buried in a family plot. Children whom their parents had to bury.

I think we should all think about this once in awhile - about just how much harsher life used to be a mere 200-300 years ago. How much hardship that would be viewed as extraordinary today was routine in those days. And how much of our current success we owe to people whose reality included having to bury one child after another on a hillside like this one.

All content and images by @borepstein unless otherwise noted.