Some People's Kids

originally uploaded by Dr. Beef from Montrose Cemetery, Chicago, IL


The Flickr member who posted this foto writes, "We ALL waited out a grieving mourner to get close to this monument too, apparently, a little girl. This isn't a good shot by any means, but I just wanted to show the marker. It had a bit of a creepiness to it, but hopefully, it offers some comfort to those she left behind."


I'm utterly offended. Not by the monument, since it's an absolutely beautiful tribute to a little girl who is obviously loved & missed. If I could erect such a sculpture for my own girls there would be fifty more like it in the world! Its just lovely how the parents have made her little resting place such a grand place to sit with her. Like them, we put in our own graveside bench so we could sit with our special daughters who sleep beneath the sod. And like them we're presently working on a fund raiser to erect an angel monument in the baby garden where our girls rest.

No, what offends me is that the poster actually admits to having to wait for the mourners to leave in order to get the foto--as if they inconvenienced his time or got in his way. And then he had the nerve to say there's something "creepy" about the graveside monument.

Excuse me, but the only thing creepy about any of it is the photographer impatiently hovering in the wings, waiting for the bereaved to leave so he could get a photo of some poor child's gravesite. It's like the paparazzi snapping shots through the car windows as Princess Diana bled to death.

I kid you not, if I had been the mourning mother that his hovering presence waited on to leave, I would have absolutely & unabashedly come unglued, and the cops would have had to have taken me away!

The nerve of some people! And to think how they openly spew forth their own tactless ignorance is just utterly astounding! I guess in this grievous journey of burying two children of my own, I'll never ever cease to be amazed at the flamboyantly callous nature of humanity.

To be a cemetery hobbiests, enthusiast, or geneologist is all well & good--it's a noble hobby that I enjoy for myself. But NO cemetery enthusiasts should ever ever ever forget the very real & anguished mourners who don't frequent the cemetery to capture a photograph or enjoy a peaceful walk.

No, some of us frequent the cemetery because we've got children or parents or siblings interred there. Some of us have no choices in our hobbies-- they were thrust upon us like Diana's horrid car crash in the Paris tunnel. How some fotogs live with themselves is a real mystery...