during our little camping trip this weekend in the white mountains i also visited 2 cemeteries that we happened to drive by. when we drove home on sunday, we didnt take the boring, crowded highway but remained on the byroads, through tiny tiny towns. often just some houses along the road. here and there we passed a cemetery, usually also just a small field along the road. but the above one was a bit bigger. while i took some time to wander around, tim dried some of our soaked stuff in the hot sun; now suddenly it was dry in no time! i guess it must have been weird; a guy spreading out 3 huge tarps in the grass while some girl was taking pictures at the cemetery.... (at least there was no body in the tarp!)
this is in warren, a tiny town in new hampshire with a population of less than a 1000 people! the cemetery was a bit hilly, and the stones were sort of randomly placed in the grass. it seemed quite well maintained, but i couldnt find a name on any of the entrance gates (an actual fence was missing, btw). the mountains in the background made for a pretty scenery... i liked this set of stones, for their last name, as well as the first name; "cotton". i never heard of the name cotton... the poem on eliza's grave says this: "she has crossed the silent river, she has gained the brighter shore, where sickness pain and sorrow can come to her no more". although googling it taught me it can be found on more graves, i still liked it... unfortunately, i couldnt find anything about mr & mrs foot.
many of the graves on this cemetery also had the hand with the finger pointed upwards, as you can see above. i always find it funny to see those. somehow my mind formed this into an image where an actual hand sticks out of the grave, the buried actually not yet dead, or coming to life again... :) i never rationally thought about this, and that thats just very weird, nor wondered what the actual meaning of this symbol is. unitl julie showed some hands on gravestones recently, and i realized how ridiculous my thoughts were. some googling told me this; a hand with the finger pointing upwards means the hope of heaven, while a hand pointing downwards represents god reaching down for the soul (as julie had mentioned already); but i have not yet seen that one around here. as for tim; he said that a middle finger would have been more fun.....
more taphophiles can be found here!
