Cemeteries

“Some mothers and daughters bond by baking or going shopping.
I bond with my mother by frolicking around in cemeteries taking pictures”
- Katrina

My daughter is doing photography for NCEA level two and her theme she has chosen is graves, angels and lollipops.
So over the last few months we have been visiting cemeteries around the country.
Last weekend we went to Wellington and went to the Karori Cemetery.

This is an amazing place and the first burials were in 1891. It is basically full now except for family plots and children’s graves.

Brief History
Karori Cemetery is New Zealand's second largest burial ground, covering nearly 40 hectares. It was the final resting place of about 80,000 people. Today, it is a wealth of Wellington history and a peaceful place to visit.

I did in fact find it peaceful and the sun was shining through the branches of trees creating a speckled carpet of colour.
We didn’t have nearly enough time to see it all and will go back next time we are in Wellington.
There was a feeling of sadness not just for the loss of lives but that some graves were just entitled “mother”. No name or date.
The other aspect was that most of the old graves are unkept and though it may look nice, the lichen and moss are creeping over the tombs and stones making it very hard to read.

A lot have been broken over the years and it appeared in some places that the local glue sniffers visit to get their “hit”.
But looking past all that there was something magnificent about the rows upon rows of history.
And the rows just seem to go on and on and on.

It made me realise that I don’t want to have my ashes spread out somewhere but that I want a place somewhere where there is a recording of my life here on this earth that future generations can discover.
This blog and paper records may all disappear but that cemetery was proof that it will last forever on earth.