Headstones do far more than just mark the location of a corpse. They are individual monuments. A stone to represent a life and to bring back into existence some part of that individual. A stone to occupy the physical place where that person no longer stands. It provides a means of proving that they were real: a rock to touch because their arm is gone. It provides a space for the dead to be among the living in more than just the mind. They are a mini monument, a reminder that this was once someone of interest; they are a silent shout declaring the importance of a person that’s gone.

Stones have been used to memorialize the dead for countless centuries, and even engraved tombstones for an individual date back to antiquity. Maybe it’s the longevity that makes the practice so meaningful. Maybe we’re hoping we can make a permanent existence for the dead, since in our world their actual life was so brief in comparison. Does inscribing their biographic data onto a rock make their memory live on longer than if we don’t?

Better or worse than "Unknown"?                                                              &… — Better or worse than "Unknown"? *Image CC0 via Pixabay*

Certainly, since the US Civil War, that has been the belief in the United States. To the survivors of the conflict, the many graves that ended up labelled “Unknown” possessed a special level of horror, matched only in the terror possibly being both unknown and lost among the fields and forest. To combat this, the post-war years were filled with a fervor for finding and labeling the dead, as well as creating the dominant layout for cemeteries, which survives to the present..

Gone were the ramshackle and mostly untended graveyards of the Puritans. Instead, there were large manicured lawns and neat rows of stone. Stones to stand in for lives. Stones to remember them by.

Yet, how much memory is there in an epitaph? Is “John Chapman, shipwright, died 10th August, 1789” truly remembered-- called to mind-- by having an occasional stranger read that engraving on his monument? Or, is the only part of the dead brought back to life in this fashion a hollow shade; a ghost made only of a name and date?

Past the existential fear of dying, the way we cling to this long-standing tradition of small stone memorials points out a fear deeper than that of being dead. We fear that we will be forgotten, even as we acknowledge that it is an inevitability. So we carve mini monuments, assuming (or pretending) that it will keep us in people’s hearts, or minds, and fully convinced that of course future generations will want these stones, kept in a communal location, and largely immovable (even if the living move away).

However, it is hard to deny that gravestones serve a purpose. They do function as a landmark: a place where the bereaved may still feel close or connected to the dead. For certain cultures and faiths, the headstone at the grave plays a significant role. As such, it’s hard to argue that tombstones should be faux pas and abandoned all together. Instead, maybe it’s time to downsize our individual monuments, maybe even divorce the stone from the site. Why not have a smaller version that a grieving, elderly widow can visit merely by going out into her garden? Or even a tiny model that any young adult, moving from apartment to apartment, can keep to be able to visit their parents and grandparents; a movable stone memorial, heavy with the meaning of its full-size counterparts, only now able to remain with those for whom such a stone matters the most.