EN(dur)ANCE by Robin Gudal

 

This is the second in a five-part series of columns entitled “Epitaph.”

We spent more time than I felt like we needed to there, almost edging toward a waste of time. It was, however, intriguing to Greg. That intrigued me.

Why was this cemetery important to the history of this state park? The markers where so unattended, why was it so worn down, why did no one seem to care about the legacy of these individuals?

I should have known better when we left that day, as this would not be my last experience with this plot of land. My husband is a thinker. Before we left the first time a ranger had come to do his rounds. This man was a researcher of sorts on old cemeteries, as they intrigued the historian within him. He gave us a bit more history of this forgotten place. The details that stuck out to me where as follows: there is no recorded history of this cemetery, the state park acquired the property at some point, with no knowledge of the real perimeters of it, family members they could identify where given notice that they could within a certain time frame either exhume the wooden-boxed graves and replace them elsewhere or take the headstones, and lastly, they decided to mow the area we were standing in, but the actual cemetery probably went beyond. As the ranger in his search in the adjoining woods thought he saw other divots in the earth, there is no record and thus no indisputable way to know its true boundaries

As I said, this was our first visit; the next would come as we were leaving the state park for our next designation. Greg wanted to search for the “maybe” ones in the woods.

Put yourself in this story; here we are wandering through woods, looking for divots, looking for the only reminder of someone’s life. No markers. No words. No names. No reminder other than sunken earth of this person’s life, however short or long it had been. No legacy.

We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace. I Chronicles 29:15 New Living Translation

When reading recently 1 Chronicles the commentary in my Bible struck me. The book is full of names, list and lists of names. Unfamiliar names. They may seem irrelevant; however, they prove that God forgets no one, no one!

My commentary quotes this, “Even those who go to their graves unknown by others, God remembers by name.” (Sanctuary, a Devotional Bible for Woman, Tyndale House Publishers, page 439 quoted.)

It made me sad to think that these individuals had probably lived hard lives, had undoubtedly encountered things I could never dream of, had in their own way made an impact on others’ lives and now many years later, there is absolutely no evidence of their legacy.

Robin (Beckman) Gudal, intentional in life, is a wife, momma, nana, friend and a flawed and imperfect follower of Jesus.