“SPOILER ALERT: We all die in the end.”

 Oh I couldn’t possibly live next to a graveyard

How many times have I heard this phrase over the years?
I heard it just yesterday, a conversation with a walker who was looking for local properties to buy
I don’t like the thought of seeing gravestones everyday, I really couldn’t 
Arnt you frightened ?

I’ve been in Trelawnyd fifteen years
And I’ve known a few people who are in the graveyard now.
Sylvia the flower show matriarch, Bob the Chicken who taught me to kill chickens humanely. The Red Faced Welsh Farmer, John,animal helper Pat’s husband, Olwenna and Her friend Gwyneth from Pen Y Cefn Isa, Flower Show stalwarts Meirion H and Mrs Lewis , I could go on 
Friends and acquaintances 

I can walk around the cemetery at night without being fazed 
And do,so,regularly 
What is there to be possibly frightened of?
Just old friends 


A painting of the church and churchyard by Hattie

101 comments:

  1. Everyone should be taught about death from an early age. It's part of the cycle of life. There is nothing to fear and embracing grief would make it much more easy to deal with. X

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    1. You almost won us the quiz with that answer about death mave

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    2. My morbid fascination came in use at last.

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  2. We have the cemetery a couple of hundred yards away. All sorts of funerals go buy ... large, small, black horses with black plumes, white horses with white plumes. Gypsy funerals are a sight to behold ..... thousands upon thousands of people !!! We have no problem with it .... all part of life .... & death ! I would love to live in an old church/chapel. XXXX

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    1. Gypsy funerals grab the spectator by the throat

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  3. i find cemeteries very peaceful x

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  4. The good thing about living next to a graveyard is that the neighbours are quiet!

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  5. I live next door to a cemetery, opposite an undertakers. Down the road a 100 yards away is a very, very old cemetery. All I've ever met in them is the local fox fraternity.
    I've kept the locals entertained at night in the pouring rain in my pajamas, wellingtons and brolly while persuading the bloody cat to get down a tree.
    Not to mention the beautiful black horses for the funeral dray I found tied to my fence and fertilizing the pavement well.
    Not a problem for me.

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    1. I love the thought of funeral horses , I’ve never seen any in Trelawnyd x

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  6. My goodness ... the best place to go for a quiet walk is a cemetery ... peaceful and no one bothers you!
    Some folks have watched too many spooky movies! LOL

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    1. And ours faces south...glorious in the summer

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  7. I can walk through a small graveyard in the daytime but not a larger deserted one.Last year I walked through an old cemetery I hadn't been to before alone to reach the crematorium and it was a grey drizzly day and I was almost running.I'm a bit nervous of the unknown and I think there may be a ghost upstairs but I wish I knew who it is x

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    1. Giant cemeteries like you find in the US Can be rather FOREBODING

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  8. Lovely painting. Does Hattie sell prints of her painting?

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  9. So soft and peaceful.

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  10. It's the living we have to be afraid of, not the dead. xx

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  11. I don't think graveyards are scary at all. I find them interesting and I like to read old gravestones to find out about the people buried there.
    A graveyard is a quiet neighbor, I would think...

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  12. Not only do you have the quietest neighbors, but they NEVER COMPLAIN! :)

    I'd much rather have a view of a peaceful old graveyard than a busy street, or worse still, a parking lot!

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  13. Barbara Anne8:27 pm

    I love your thought of the graveyard occupants as being old friends - as they are.
    Long ago, when I was with the first patient who died in my presence, I remember being astonished at how utterly absent he had suddenly become. His body was empty of the man who had been breathing moments before and it was a palpable emptiness.
    I later read what is said to be on a headstone in a New England cemetery:
    "This ain't Pease, it's just the pod.
    Pease shelled out and went to God."
    Hattie's painting is wonderful. She could augment her salary by selling her art!

    Hugs!

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  14. yep, we don't get off this earth alive.

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  15. They haven't thought about the benefits - no noisy - or nosey - neighbours, no building so close to your boundary you loose your sun, uninterrupted views.

    Living in a country with such a long history, surely everyone is aware of the passage of generations - so cemeteries are similar to ancient ruins, old churches, and historic houses - what's the problem?

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    Replies
    1. I want to be buried in my graveyard
      John Gray
      Loving friend , brother and husband

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    2. Anonymous9:42 pm

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    3. Anonymous9:48 pm

      This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  16. I never got that either dear John. I live next to a cemetery and church. The church is now defunct as the congregation died off, and and the few left merged to other church. I have never minded it and actually find it calming.

    At least I have quite neighbors.

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  17. "Just old friends" so sensible, so true.

    Hattie is a very talented painter.

    lizzy

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  18. Well John I don't comment often but do read and appreciate and care. Tried to do my own blog once but it was beyond me at the time. A churchyard, especially a country churchyard is a place I would always be drawn to for the feelings evoked. I hope it's ok to share this link of the song "The Old Churchyard" described : "A song that brings together the earthliness and comfort found in a grassy churchyard with the ground-shaking ascension to heaven that those sacred spaces represent." "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey8FH_z0ZgM

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  19. The graveyard behind the Saxon church in my old village has been left to grow wild. In the summer it is full of native flowers and grasses, butterflies in abundance, buzzing bees and singing birds. It is an absolutely glorious place to be.

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    1. That sounds like an earthly paradise alright. And with the awareness that those whose remains are below are maybe enjoying the next level. I hope the "left to grow wild" was a decision rather than a lack of funds for upkeep situation; either way, nature is the winner here, and you lucky folk there enjoying it!

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    2. I planted bluebells on the boarder of my churchyard

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    3. Mab, it was a deliberate decision. It was an old part of the graveyard with no new interments for over a century. It was decided to create a haven for wildlife and as it turned out for humans too.

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  20. I would love to live beside a graveyard. Peaceful, often very beautiful places. The neighbours are quiet too.

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  21. Old friends and acquaintances, what a lovely thought.

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  22. I’m on a road trip in South Australia, I spotted a company who I’d choose as my funeral directors. G.C. & R.S. Minge and son, proprietors of the Minge Chapel, I kid you not. Childish I know but I’d like people to have something to smile about when the time comes.

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    1. Oh I so love this to be buried by a minge

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    2. Am I the only person who didn't know what a ''minge'' is?

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    3. Barbara Anne3:44 am

      No, I don't know either. Will anyone please enlighten us? Ta!

      Hugs!

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    4. Or a midge?-a word on the tv programme Countdown x

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  23. I wouldn't mind living by a graveyard but seeing grieving people regularly would disturb me, I think.

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    1. One grieving lady chased one of my chickens with a stick once who had decided to walk around the graveyard

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  24. Perfectly summed up. And lovely sunny painting - beautiful light.

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  25. My job sometimes requires that I travel to very rural areas. We have so very many tiny family burial grounds here in NH. If I'm running ahead of schedule, I always take the time to stop and take a walk through the stones. They are peaceful and calm areas that sooth my sole. X

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  26. Never miss a good cemetary.....the older the better. Truthfully, I probably wouldn't walk through it late at night alone. But honestly I wouldn't walk a whole lot of places late at night alone. It's a matter of being safe not of ghosties or ghouls.

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  27. Marvell's lines come to mind:

    The grave’s a fine and private place,
    But none, I think, do there embrace.
    Now therefore, while the youthful hue
    Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
    And while thy willing soul transpires
    At every pore with instant fires,
    Now let us sport us while we may,
    And now, like amorous birds of prey,
    Rather at once our time devour
    Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
    Let us roll all our strength and all
    Our sweetness up into one ball,
    And tear our pleasures with rough strife
    Through the iron gates of life:
    Thus, though we cannot make our sun
    Stand still, yet we will make him run.




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  28. Remember me as you pass by,
    As you are now, so once was I,
    As I am now, so you must be,
    Prepare for death and follow me.

    Roman roadside epitaph.

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    1. I love this. The young seem to have a huge problem in realising that the little old lady they see was once fun loving, attractive, sexy even. All they see is grey hair! Same goes for men, of course.

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    2. I’m invisible too xx

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  29. Our retirement property is across the road from a small country cemetery. It is a wonderful place to walk. It is a wonderful place to ponder life.

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  30. Your church and cemetery is the perfect scale. Like you, I would have no problem living nearby. The fact that you have friends in the cemetery makes it even better.

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  31. The charm may depend on the cemetery. In NYC, in Queens and Long Island there are endless acres of cemeteries that look like this: https://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/#about

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  32. My father taught me to love and respect grave yards. Keeper of our ancestors.

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  33. As long as I can remember I have loved graveyards. Even as a young person I enjoyed walking in graveyards. They have a special peace that is strangely comforting. I would not mind at all living by one.

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  34. My mum used to say that the dead don't hurt you. It's the living that do that.... She wasn't wrong

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  35. Well, like the old saying goes, when you live beside a graveyard, you have nice quiet neighbours.

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  36. I couldn't agree more! In fact I find very old graveyards quite attractive places, overlooking one would be a pleasure.

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  37. I have always enjoyed looking around graveyards, very peaceful places. I lived next to a cemetery for nearly 40 years and, like you, knew many of the occupants. When our grandchildren used to visit aged about 7 and 8 they always wanted to visit the cemetery and were fascinated one day with a freshly dug grave.

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  38. There is far more to fear from the living than the dead. X

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  39. I don't mind being around cemeteries. What is there to fear?

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  40. Well our side windows looks out over the church's graveyard, and many of the occupants have reached a good old age. Lucy, my dog, always barks at the window as if to tell the dead to stay and not to wander.

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  41. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
    Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
    Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
    The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep

    From a famous poem by your namesake.

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  42. Good neighbors. A beautiful place to stroll and contemplate life — and death, and remember old friends and neighbors, and others you didn't even know. I lived across the street from a American Civil War graveyard for 2 years at university. It was my favorite place to walk. Although on some drunken nights I did hold my breath as I walked home (so the evil spirits wouldn't enter me I think is what I was told).

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  43. I'm about to move to my new home which is across the road from the new part of a churchyard.
    I can cross the road, through a gate and walk in it anytime and no one will ever build a house on it

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  44. When I lived at home our garden backed onto a very large cemetery so I grew up with it. Our garden was so peaceful and as kids we would go 'over the wall' and hide behind the grave stones. I love cemeteries.
    Briony
    x

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  45. When we go to visit the cemetery every year now there is another family member's grave marker there. For the past few years winter comes and by the time spring arrives there is another family grave marker there. For years and years it was only my Aunt's marker, then my Uncle, then my Mom, years passed then my husband's Mom, and a few more years and his Dad's, and then in early 2020 my Dad's marker was put beside my Mom's. When my husband and I visit the cemetery, it leaves me missing so many people that I love,the rest of the day feels like I have been time travelling and am left exhausted from visiting all of those memories.

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  46. Just have to add that Ms. Hannah is quite the accomplished artist ... that is a beautiful picture!

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  47. When I moved to Oxford in 1975 and was initially living in digs while looking for a flat, I was offered a cemetery-house residence in a small, disused graveyard near the city centre, where virtually my sole duty would be to lock the gate at night and open up mornings. Although the rent was ridiculously low I just couldn't do it. The thought of living alone near all those decomposed corpses was too much. I'd never be able to get to sleep - plus, of course, the post-closing time revellers climbing over the low wall to use the graveyard as a toilet. Even the extra-low rent wouldn't have compensated.

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    1. Nice to hear from u Raymondo

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    2. I appreciate that, JayGee. We're still here though maybe a little less in evidence than heretofore.

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  48. My favorite memory is walking through the foggy cemetery at St.Bartholomew's Church next to Ye Olde Six Bells Pub when overnighting at a hotel in Horley, Surrey near Gatwick airport. Spooky - ghost stories, secret passages etc. run rampant - but a lot of fun, and the bottle of wine, and fish & chips awaiting at the other end was worth it - oh how I miss British country pubs. . . . . and historic cemeteries!

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  49. I have always loved walking in cemeteries. I read the gravestones, calculate ages and imagine stories about the people buried there. Nothing to be scared of. Its peaceful.

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  50. I worked at a Veterinary Clinic for 25 years...I also had pets and livestock. I experienced death many times. Plus, on nice days I would drive about a mile down the road from the clinic to have my lunch in the old, lovely cemetery. Quiet, beautiful trees........peace.

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  51. Only reason I don't want to live next to graveyard is all living people visiting it.

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  52. I walk my dog Lucy in a nearby cemetery most days. Lovely and peaceful and lots of changes to see in flowers, trees etc. Love it.

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  53. Thank you all for your comments ..I’ve been on long day shifts all weekend so I’ve not had time to reply to all xxx

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