Memorializing Memories

Running along the beach at Seaside, Oregon is a series of lightposts -- modern ones made to look like vintage poles -- which stand between the boardwalk and the houses. They stand looking out at the ocean, waiting for the sun to fade into the sea. Being a college English teacher, albeit a part-time disposable one, I could wax poetic about that particular metaphor (and might at some point), but today's blog-post is about the need to publicly memorialize our memories of those who have passed. 

Again, English teacher here, but I had to wonder about the differing language used by different families. Some of the plaques wax poetic about what happens beyond death, some quote others who have waxed poetic, while some have a fairly succinct statement that they loved, missed, and were grateful to have known, the dead loved person[s]. Does the very public memorializing language indicate the level of ...missing? Or does the depth, the floweriness, of the language simply reflect something else; perhaps reflecting the comfort level of the purchaser of the plaque with poetry? More questions than answers here. No one but the person who paid to memorialize their loved one can possibly answer the questions...and who would really ask? 

 


I simply noted the differing tone of the various statements and the way many of them connect the metaphor of wandering into death with that of the metaphor of wandering across the vast ocean into a foreign land. 


The Tennyson poem at left is a prime example of the connection between the metaphor of death and the time and/or experience which lies beyond it to that of the ocean and man's experience traveling its constantly changing terrain.
 

And then the poem above does the opposite, it juxtaposes the joyful sameness of being with one person on a day-to-day level for all of time with that of the adventure caused by the changeability of the ocean

The one at left and below is a simply statement of fact. And the one at left makes sure to mention all names leaving no one out.

As you can see, there is a difference in the floweriness of language; it runs from vintage Victorian poetry to what seems to be very modern, very prosaic, simple statements of fact.

Yet in each case the family has PAID to memorialize the name of their loved one[s] and the fact of that their love, and their loved one, has been remembered.

Re-imgining a Life

Pictures on the wall catch the attention of lone wanderers,
Stopping them to read of lives lost, lives well spent, lives mourned.
Gone from life, yet
Larger than life; they tell their stories in details imaged by an artist
Who never knew them when they walked reality.
All the stories told in second person channeling though
Third person; what remains of the original in all this
Imagining?

Only pictures.
Only stories on a wall.
Only re-imagined lives remain
As pictures on a wall.


I am re-imagining my own life currently; and this blog will reflect that re-invention. The wall is somewhere in the Hawthorne area of Portland, Oregon -- image taken in 2013.