I’m dying to share this… how one woman is remembered in the Caribbean.
From the inscription which marks the span of her life.
From sunrise to sunset…
You have to think that Emily was a ray of sunshine herself.
Well, she was from Tobago, an island where rain is known as liquid sunshine… www.visittobago.gov.tt.
And I left with a mountain of memories… It’s Robinson Crusoe’s very own Tobago and I should cocoa – Christmas in Tobago.
I was thinking about death today (no, not a heavy Saturday night) but a regular occurrence.
After visiting the ancient burial ground of Glendalough, Co. Wicklow, near my home here in Ireland.
I may well have inherited my fascination for graveyards from my Dear Old Dad who I’ll meet there one day.
The Tobagonians have a unique way of seeing life… and death.
As evidenced by this riddle on what has become the most famous grave on the island.
So that you don’t have to strain your eyes too much the gist of the inscription on the 1783 grave in Plymouth reads in part:
‘She was a mother without knowing it, and a wife without letting her husband know it except by her kind indulgences to him.’
Riddles in Tobago
Now we were asked by our hosts the same question they pose to every visitor: ‘What the heck does it mean?’
My answer, the obvious one, is it’s a woman, whoever knows what goes on in their minds.
I keep my eyes open for graves and final resting places wherever I go.
Just this year I discovered that Marilyn Monroe’s final resting place is off a busy street in LA… www.visitcalifornia.com and www.discoverlosangeles.com.
Where she is forced to spend eternity with her old nemesis Hugh Hefner which I tell you all about on this blog… My weekend with Marilyn
Of course, graveyards have strong personal connections to those who are related to, or are friends of the deceased.
World War I battlefields
Such as when I was the first of my family to kneel at the graveyard of my Great Uncle Willie who fell in Ieper, or Ypres.
While on that tour of the World War I battlefields In Flanders fields with www.gtitravel.ie and www.visitflanders.com and http://www.visit-somme.com I visited the Canadian and German memorials.
The Canadian memorial with its Caribou statue has a special resonance for my family as Grandpa George fought for the Canadian Army.
And met Granny Mary, a nurse, when he returned to Scotland.
A South African tale
War and graveyards tend to go hand in hand.
And in a visit to the Eastern Cape in South Africa at the start of the year What’s new pussycat? I braved the cold and the damp…
And the big game to visit the graveyard of an Afrikaans resistance fighter from the Boer War…
Of course hanging around graveyards at this time of year you’re liable do get some spooky vibes.
And the lines between this life and the next can become blurred.
Make of me and my colleagues from that trip to South Africa what you will… www.southafrica.net.
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