Heaven and Hail

Today I spent an interesting couple of hours in a small town cemetery.

Last year, a fellow Blogger Brooke introduced me to a group called Find A Grave . It is an organization that has volunteers take photographs of graves from request. I have been wanting to do a shoot for awhile, but every time I attempted one, something either got in the way or someone beat me too it.

This morning, I got an email request for a small town just south of where I live. I know the area, and knew it would be a small cemetery. Typically you can find out the area of a grave, through the cemetery website or groundskeeper. This cemetery is old, and has no office/groundskeeper on the grounds. It also did not have the information on line. Just a confirmation that the grave I was searching for was indeed there.

It was a beautiful but windy day. Perfect for photography.

Have you ever really paid attention to the detail in the Headstones, Memorials, or Markers? Particularly in the older ones. They are amazing. Some are outlandish and some are simple. Some have a lot to say while others are brief and to the point. Some are downright creepy.

This cemetery only had one Mausoleum. Must have been a very prominent person. There were side windows that were Stained glass, with light pouring inside the mausoleum. I felt it would be disrespectful to take a photo at the door where I could see the colorful light pouring in.

Benches were popular here as well.

It was fascinating to see the detail and consideration to age..years, months, and days. To an exact.

Here lies siblings. Just to the side of their parents Headstone. Each child died within two years of life. Life was hard back in the 1800. There certainly wasn't the medical knowledge or immediate care that we have today.

Some Tombstones are so old yet grand. The smaller one is of a child, and there is a sleeping lamb craved on top. The old Oak tree is magnificent in the background.

I noticed a lot of older Headstones with the hand pointing up.

Then I saw this one...

Which freaked me out. Actually scared me.  Did I mention I was all alone walking this Cemetery for two hours?  Did I mention how the ground is very uneven and I found myself tripping now and then? Or when I stopped to take a picture, my foot would start sinking into the ground?  To make up to these souls I did a lot of praying for them and their families (especially for the many young people buried here). I also picked up a fallen cherub or two.

I saw a few of these old broken tombstones. 

In all I saw hundreds and hundreds, maybe a thousand tombstones, headstones, memorials, benches, markers... whatever you are comfortable calling them.  The problem... with all those I read (and I read every name searching for my assignment), I could not find her grave. This teenager that died so young, that I went on a search to photograph her grave for a loved one, and I could not find anyone by her name.

So I went home without the picture I sought after.

Now about the Hail part of my post.

Tonight the weather got really weird. The sunset was so bright. Scary bright. Then the warm air got really cold! The weather alerts were on the tube and just like they predicted, this came down loud and hard.

It hurts when Hail hits you. But I had to get a picture.