TODAY THE WORDS ARE STILL SIX FEET UNDER

TODAY THE WORDS are STILL SIX FEET UNDER. This message is not personalized, even for me. It came to me while we were visiting my family’s burial plot however. While we were looking around the cemetery, I noticed so many different sized memorial headstones, some were individual and some were family markers and somehow a thought came to me. I mentioned my thoughts to Greg and he said after I had told him what had come to me, “No matter what, you are still six feet under.”

With his statement in mind, I replied I thought this should be a blog post so here goes. I have always been connected to old cemeteries and they have so much history. This is an old cemetery, and my Sister’s great grandson was with us, Nick or Cade as he is called both and is an inquisitive youngster. He was fascinated by the old tombstones or as we more currently call them headstones. He found a few of the oldest graves which are now caved in and in disrepair. This caused me to look at the different heights and size of the headstones and markers. As I looked at the obvious differences, I had a thought and please understand, my thoughts were not directed to anyone or any family. It was one of those “come to the raw truth Arline moments”.

What Greg said was in reply to my thought, No matter how high, no matter how eloquent, no matter how large, it is only a piece of stone and it doesn’t have any bearing on the soul beneath. 

Now, let me explain. I don’t have any personal feeling about the size of a monument head stone at all. I love to see the old one towering over 4-6 feet. I love the beauty of them but it is the thought for us to ponder. Our life is measured before our death; how we love each other; how we serve Our God; how we show kindness and charity to others; and how we forgive others as we have been forgiven.

Thinking about this, I remembered one of my brothers who knew he was facing death and who had asked me to take care of his final service and burial. He had the money to have a nice headstone and I was asking if he had any preference to what kind. He was specific and was decisive about his marker be similar to our brother’s grave who only had the marker which is furnished for military. I argued and said we had no choice for the other brother Carlton, who had been killed suddenly without insurance. Joe said “Sis, it is my grave and I don’t want to try to outdo Carlton.” How selfless and no matter how tempted I was to do a bigger one; I respected his wishes. When my Daddy died, he did the same thing so the men in our plot all have the same type marker. It spoke highly of respect.

Now for my deeper thought…..It is not the marker because somehow this decision has always made my brother seem so much taller than he was in life. He stood tall even though as the truth speaks, “Still six feet under”. Again, a person’s life is not measured how tall the headstone is; it is how tall they stand in life.  Live life; love life; and live life to the fullest as when it is all over; No headstone; no marker…..WE ALL WILL BE STILL SIX FEET UNDER.