I went for my usual run today in the grave yard across the highway from where my parents live.. and before you think i'm weird and creepy, i'll say that running in a cemetary is not as strange as it sounds.. it's actually a beautiful place if you can get past the fact that there are hundreds of deceased people resting in peace just beneath the surface of the ground... and since that obviosly doesn't bother me.. i run there often. i love all the old trees and the colors of the flowers that paint the field of gravestones and all the white statues of angels.. there are cows grazing the grasses of the field just over the barbed wire fence on the other side of the cemetary.. and there is a little old white church across the highway from the graveyard that has probably been there for at least a hundred years.. it really is a lovely place.. i like running there.. plus i like the fact that i know one time around is a half mile so it's easy to keep up with how much i've run...
today when i finished up my last mile, i decided to take a look at some of the graves near the front of the cemetary.. because the ones near the front are the oldest.. and i came across the joint grave stone of Joesph and Effie McNutt.. the center of the old grey stone read "together forever".. and i thought to myself.. what a beautiful idea.. this couple was buried together here beneath this old oak tree.." Then I looked closer at the dates listed on the stone.. He was born in 1872 and he died in 1933... and she was born in 1873 and died in 1976.. so she lived without him for 40 something years.. and that is such a long time to be without the man you married... and the thought of that made me sad.. I wondered what her life must have been like after he was gone.. and the challenges she must have faced.. Effie endured 40 years as a widow until she herself passed as well and was laid to rest next to her joseph beneath the oak tree...
i know this post has been sappy and sentimental.. but seeing that gravestone caught my heart off guard.. i think the reason i think this is so sad is because one of my very favorite things to see is elderly couples who still love each other after all the years gone by... you've seen them.. they're the ones holding hands in wal-mart.. and the ones who sit really close to each other on the park bench at the walking trail.. they have lived their lives together and grown old together side by side.. it's beautiful.. so i really dislike the idea of someone having to grow old alone.. but still, it was a sight to behold, seeing their names together on the stone... Joseph and Effie.. beneath the script "together forever"
4 comments:
i LOVE this post!
apparently you and i are on an elderly kick :)
together forever...what a beautiful thought that they were finally reunited after 40 years of being apart. i'm sure it was a beautiful reunion :)
maybe that's why God tells us to take care of widows... hmm.. never really processed it, though. Good post.. made me want to love on some old people who are lonely
oh crap. crying. of course i'm crying because of this post. bless effie. it brings a whole new meaning to 'till death do us part'. she never 'parted' him, not even in her death. not to mention, effie was over 100 YEARS OLD. That must have been one UH-mazing woman. She had to have known Jesus... you know? To sustain a heart for 40 years after the one you loved passed... yep, her heart could have only sustained and endured time because she loved her Savior. That's what i think anyway. I'm gonna go lookin for effie when i get to heaven, and i'm gonna ask her to tell me all about it. loved the post, awesome heart sister. love you.
You love The Notebook, don't you? This was a great post. The lonely part strikes a chord. Then I remember-He's a Lover for the lonely. I'm glad that holds true at any age.
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