Blind Prophecy

I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon wandering around Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery. I was feeling restless and wanted to get out of the house, but didn’t want to spend money, so a long rambling walk through the gravestones felt nice.

Spring Grove is huge. 733 acres (compared to Central Park at 800 acres or Golden Gate Park at 1,000 acres) and thousands of graves. After a while, one grave looks very much like another, and the larger and more remarkable graves don’t really impress, either.

Until I spotted the grave in the photo. I don’t know who the Rhodes are, if they were particularly important, but I was impressed with the double column grave. Unlike most graves, this one didn’t list dates of birth and death, instead, the couple’s resting place is a reminder of love.

“Sacred to the memory of a great love / Laura May Lovell and Thomas D Rhodes / 1882 ~ Husband and wife fifty two years ~ 1934 / Love has no death”

While Laura and Thomas’s contemporaries were setting up granite tombstones that scream, “remember me” and “I was important,” the Rhodes created a monument to enduring and lasting love. I found this more comforting, more touching, more memorable than anything else I saw in the cemetery today.

I hope we all experience that kind of great romantic love in our lives.

For more photos of the cemetery, I’ve got a set on flickr.

Filed under: Cincinnati by Jere Keys