The undeniable grief and tears that must have soaked this very ground have given rise to some very ornate stones in memory of those laid beneath. As I moved from plot to plot, I do the arithmetic in my head; date of death minus the year of birth; perhaps I am surprised that seldom does my number arrive to anything larger than 50. Death was a frequent visitor to the children and youthful parents in many of these handsomely carved monuments. Often the family plot, enclosed by a wrought iron fence, would have the a marker for their daughter, her date of death preceded that of her brother, 2 years her senior, by merely two days. Next to the graves of the children was a substantial monument, with the enscription, Beloved Mother". She was likely too ill to grieve her lost children, as she died a day after her second child. I surmise the all-too-common disaster of yellow fever or some such disease swept through the family, and quickly took out three of its members. I pause, though I can honestly not comprehend the scope of this sort of tragedy. We are blessed to live with 21st Century medicine and all of the advances of public health - a blessing so immense that we scarcely ever consider our good fortune in this country.
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| An ornate family plot Natchez City Cemetery |
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| Kirby takes a rest beneath a huge oak tree |
I think, disease and death was much more common in the 19th Century, but I believe for all of its commonality and banality, the grief and affliction experienced was no less for frequency. Standing in place for the grief stricken and in memory of those who have passed, great stones are erected and scriptures written. I guess it ends this way for all of us, but a stroll through these stones and dated markers causes me to tred lightly and consider my steps into the unknown days that remain for me as I walk this earth.
No matter the cause, it is sobering to come upon the ground made hallow by the graves of those who gave their all for their cause. The glory of the south was laid out before us in several location with monuments to those who died as a confederate soldier. All the more sobering to see a marker "Unknown Soldier". These lads gave away even the knowledge to their own kin of there final resting place. No one but the Lord knows the identity of these bones beneath this soil. It is without a doubt a place of great sadness, but the living with there etched words and monuments try to adorn the tragedy with the trapping of honor and glory. We are a strange species.
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| A sobering sight The graves of unknown soldiers |
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| At rest The Glory of the South |
Having touched upon our peculiar interest in visiting the old cemetery and having been alone with our own thoughts of mortality, we left this place of the honored dead and retrned to town.
In the evening we made a point to go out and walk along the tall bluffs between Natchez and the Mississippi River. As the sun arched into a western cloud bank and a barge pushed its cargo upriver, I again was struck by large thoughts of a small man before a mighty river. I was standing upon a spot where the Natchez People, great earthen mound builders, European explorers from old France and old Spain, ruffians, river traders, wanderers, American combatants of a divided nation and a bloody war had no doubt once stood. As the big waters flowed quietly southward, who know what mysteries can come to this spot but were never shared and and how many wanderers have passed along this way and are long lost to all memory. I fell small on the bluffs above the Mississippi and tiny in the currents of history of what has already passed from here. I have to wonder, what is yet to come? But I know it is futile to guess, but it has been a pleasant experience to stand from this vantage and peer back into what has been.
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| Sunset at the bridge between Natchez, MS and Vidalia, LA |
We return home to Texas tomorrow.
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