A Strange Place for Hope

A cemetery is a strange place for hope. The passing of a loved one, the reality of death, the finality of the grave—markings of sadness, suffering and loss—seem hardly a fitting home for hope.

I stood among a small cluster of weathered headstones, some barely readable, others tilted by time and still others standing straight and strong a century after their graves were filled, flowered and forgotten. Oh, if only these stones could talk. What stories they could tell of days and decades past—of friends and family, of explorations and inventions, of war and peace, of famous and infamous.

Silly me, stones cannot speak.

Or can they?

A casual glance at these memorial markers told me this was a family gathering. Their name was of German origin, as were many of the chiseled inscriptions. Examining the dates of birth and death, I saw three generations spanning 120 years of fathers and mothers and sons and daughters all buried within arm's reach—arms that once held each other in the splendor of life and rejoiced and later dressed the dead in their grave clothes and grieved.

In the theater of my mind, I watched as family members over the years made burdened and repeated trips to this lonely plot of grassland on a gently sloped hill. The fact that there were only a few other graves in this cemetery, mostly dated in the same and surrounding years, told me they all were neighbors who probably toiled and suffered and celebrated and shared daily life with one another.

Stooping for a closer look, I saw that some were born in one country and died in another. I wondered about such lives. They gave up all they had to gain all they could not know. Why? What lead them to reach for the distant beyond? They waved their last goodbyes to friends and family knowing truly and surely they would see each other no more on this earth. They left land, inheritance, history, and heritage. They turned their hearts from what was known and set their faces to the glow of an unknown future, one pregnant with the dreams of what could be. What strength and courage. What daring. What hope!

What was it like as they watched the last glimpse of their homeland and everything familiar slip below the horizon? What was it like for weeks and months as they sailed on the waves of memories of what once was, blown by the winds of what was to be? Did they suffer through storms of doubt? Were they lashed with sudden regret? Perhaps.

Whatever doubts and fears assailed them, they did not turn back. They turned hearts and faces to their new beginning and rode the swells of faith.

The winds of their adventure blew into my heart; their thrill bled into my being. Would I dare set my own hope on similar course? Yes! The possible is forever full of promise; the future ever sparkles with hope.

With heightened expectancy, I searched again these old headstones. What other stories would they tell? Though hearts and mouths long silenced, their voices surely wafted across the Great Divide and through the years between us. They long dead but speaking, I alive and listening, what we shared bonded our hearts and lives.

Like seeing the emerging image of a 3-D puzzle, another of their stories crystallized before my eyes. Four of the graves at my feet were three sons and one daughter. Their headstones told the story of a father and mother burying each child long before they themselves were laid in the dust of death. Four children—four promises, each birthed with their own hope for the morrow—dead. Each life was short: the first was 20 months at his passing, the second 15 months, the third 2 ½ months, and the fourth 9 months. Each was born in the month of March over a span of five short years.

My heart was dashed.

Gripped with their silent story, my eyes sped to the next stone. There lay yet another son. He walked the earth long enough to raise his own children—only to outlive them all. His first child lived less than a year, the second for 16; the third was like the first as was the fourth. Only the last reached maturity—and she died at 29, two years before her father.

Suddenly the ground upon which I stood became precious, made so by weaving together the joyous heights of births with the broken depths of death. What price their hope? Their very flesh and blood. What cost to the hearts of each parent as yet another dream was buried. What grief these parents endured. Why continue to bear children when they suffer death so prematurely? What burdens weighed upon their lives for those intervening years and decades until they finally lay alongside their loved ones.

Theirs was one sad and overwhelming story. What words would they offer up now? Where lay their hopes—and mine? Buried deep within the earth and time, their voices spoke no more. How incomplete, I thought. How sad to leave their storied lives unfinished. Must hope always lie in the hollowed ground of death? How can parents bury so many children and yet risk the birth of more?

Like the phoenix rising from the ash, across the years and through the generations, the answer arose in my heart. "Death may conquer lives, but it will never conquer hope for life. After each death hope was born again." There can be no other reason why these parents birthed more children. Hope for life birthed a life of hope. Each birth was the trumpet's proclamation that death reins not supreme; hope does. Within the context of only one life and death, such hope may not easily be seen. When one looks across the ages, however, hope is readily evident in each successive birth.

Look around. Are not all graves and stones in this cemetery a testament of life? And is it not so in every cemetery in every country across the Earth? Think no more that all life gives way to death; it is not so. Wherever there is hope, death must yield as life springs forth.

A cemetery is not such a strange place for hope after all.