Cemetery Caching or Am I Just Weird?

Saturday morning I awoke and resolved to find my one hundredth cache. I was not able to get started until one in the afternoon and I was sitting at seventy-nine. It was going to be a real challenge to find twenty-one caches before I lost the day light but I was determined to storm the beaches and make a go of it anyway. I got off to a great start, finding five in an hour. My GPS glowed warm in my hand as I flew from location to location, a man on a mission. My lofty goal seemed like it could actually be within reach. In my mind I was already composing the photograph for when I would find that hundredth cache. Should I model feigned surprise? Heady triumph? Manly bravado? Well, whatever I would do, it would be epic, like my twenty-one cache day.

But then I came upon cache number GC2FJ7V, Saint George's Cemetery. I knew then and there that my goal was in jeopardy because I love cemeteries.

OK...that last sentence sounded a lot less creepy and twisted in my head. An explanation perhaps?

 

Cemeteries fascinate me. Without a doubt, they can be places of great sorrow, especially in the wake of a tragic accident or a particularly harsh set of circumstances. But if you have ever stood in the middle of a quiet cemetery on a sunny afternoon as a cool breeze tosses the hair on your head and carries with it the faint scent of flowers in bloom, you know they are also places of great peace and rest.
Cemeteries, particularly old cemeteries like this gem located in Saint George's, Delaware, not far from the swirling waters of the C & D canal, are also large time capsules. They preserve an excellent and intriguing historical account, not only of life and death in a particular geographic area, but also of the ways we have chosen to memorialize our loved ones over the decades.

They are a sacred storehouse of stories, carved in stone, set out to be read not only by friends and family, but by any soul who happens by. Declarations that a person was born, lived his life (however brief or long a time that may have been), died, and was remembered. Love, respect, and memory given physical form. Remembered for as long as the words retain their carved legibility in the surface of the stone marker.

I pulled in at the front gate of the cemetery and had the cache in ten minutes. Then I took my camera from my pack and began to wander. Lost in history, in the stories of people I will never meet, in the unspoiled peace of this amazing plot of ground, an intended fifteen minute stroll turned into a ninety minute one. I tried to capture some of the essence of this amazing afternoon below.

Birdwatchers, Booklovers, Gardeners...sounds like people I would have been very comfortable with. I like the simplicity of the plaque mounted on a natural boulder, the kind that could be found in any garden.

Families torn apart by war...as far back as World War One.

Departed this life the 25th day of October, 1772. The oldest stone I found, dated four years prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. As I looked I wondered, what caused 36 year old Mary to lose her life? Was she loyal to the king? Did she hold with the emerging principles of the coming revolution?

As a parent, I can not imagine a more desired epitaph for my grave.

I was playing with the position of the sun for this shot. Beautifully carved Celtic Cross.

Lizzie and Ella...two children who died two days apart in 1865. A beautiful monument to their memory, still clear 145 years later.

Amazing artistry still achingly beautiful 160 years after its carving.

The entire piece.

I saw this from across the cemetery and approached slowly. As I read the inscription on the front I became so overcome with emotion that I dropped to my knees. Tears falling unheeded down my cheeks I prayed for Chase's family.

A modern stone, with a beautiful tribute to the wishes of a married couple.

A most unique marker.

I had to end with this one. I will never get to know Leroy, but based on the images on his tombstone, I sure wish I had. Seems he and I would have gotten along rather well.

So what say you, fellow Geocacher? I love cemetery caches and look for them whenever I travel. Am I alone in my peculiar enjoyment of these caching forms or are there others of you out there who share my sentiment?