Meathman's Diary: Finding solace among the headstones

Gavan Becton

There’s a beautiful graveyard just outside the village of Dunderry.

From the roadside you can read many of the names of those who have gone before, names writ large in gold leaf on shiny black marble, carved rough on cold grey stone.

I’m waiting for my daughter’s camogie training to finish in the nearby GAA club and I’ve pulled in here because it’s well, quiet.

A couple pull up in a van and make their way in to the cemetery. I lose sight of them as they disappear between the headstones down to the rear of the burial ground. Another elderly man with a cap pulled tight over his head arrives and begins to tend a grave nearer to the front, kneeling to pull up bits of weeds and some old flower pots. He leans on the curved headstone, a shoulder of support helping him to his feet again.

I think of the generations of my people (isn’t that a lovely grandiose way of putting it) interred in the grounds of Mount Jerome cemetery in Dublin's Harold's Cross.

My paternal grandparents lie in an old family plot that also marks the resting place of an infant older brother I never got to meet. My heartbroken parents wanted him ‘minded’ and so he sits on his grandad’s chest.

We placed my father’s ashes in the curved Columbarium Wall beside the Victorian Chapel 15 years ago. There weren’t too many plaques on that wall in 2005, now there are hundreds, making Dad harder to find each time we visit.

Such visits are very rare if I’m honest. The most recent was a return in all too familiar and painful circumstances - to say farewell to our mother who left us in May and in her 80th year.

My eldest brother, living in England, watched the funeral service via a Skype link because of the coronavirus crisis. He was unable to to say goodbye to her in person before she passed and couldn't be here for her final journey because of the restrictions on travel.

Mam’s ashes are waiting to take their rightful place beside her husband of 40 years in that Columbarium Wall but not until their three children can be all present together to see it happen.

As I get ready to leave and collect my daughter from training the old couple emerge from the cemetery, linking arms, heads bowed, no words spoken but they are smiling. That makes me smile.

I have never felt that desire or need to stand at a graveside to feel close to a lost loved one or friend.

I don’t need to be there in the shadows of the cypress trees to make the connection, yet I’m in awe of those who can pop open a camping chair and sit in silent vigil in a graveyard for hours on end. I hope they get comfort and solace from every visit.

The other elderly man in the cap is also leaving, casting a quick look back at what I now know to be his wife's resting place.

Till next time...