Grave matters

James and I visited the Anderson family plot at Westburn Cemetery yesterday to inspect the recently completed new inscription on the gravestone. This is Grandma’s, and her name is written next to Jimmy’s which is what she would have wanted. Their names are added below those of James’ great-grandparents, his great-uncle Hugh (who was killed in the 1st World War), his great-aunt Barbara and her husband James, his grandparents, his Aunt Agnes, and his Aunt Barbara. James’ Aunt Barbara “died in infancy” in the 1930s, and when he was growing up she was never mentioned at all. The first that he knew of her existence was when he took me to visit the family grave in the early 1980s. (What a romantic date that was!) 

After we checked that the lettering was satisfactory, we went for a stroll around the rest of the graveyard. We noticed a lot of familiar Cambuslang surnames, and the more recent graves were decorated with not only flowers but balloons and wind spinners. Some even had photos set into the gravestones, which I had always thought was a European habit. One grave was adorned with a granite bottle of Buckfast, which rather stunned me. I suppose it was meant to be affectionate. 

As I read some of the names and ages on the gravestones I thought about the many sadnesses contained there. Because in among the many long lived people who are commemorated, there are children and babies and soldiers and other young people, who will have been sorely missed by their families.