Putting It To Rest

  I have a thing for graveyards and cemeteries. I like visiting, always placing a stone down to say I was there;

 Alexander Hamilton buried in Trinity Churchyard; Herman Melville and Miles Davis at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

  I’m also moved by a poignant farewell.

I’ll begin with Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) who fought alongside George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

 Victims of France’s Reign of Terror (1793), his beloved wife  Adrianne’s whole family being of noble blood, were killed and thrown into a mass grave at what is now Paris’s Picpus Cemetery.

  (1759-1807)

 When Adrianne died at 48, she asked to be buried alongside them.

 Her heartbroken husband complied. When he died twenty-seven years later, he was laid beside her.

 His son, George Washington Lafayette, brought along the trowel of earth his father was given when he laid the corner stone of Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument, on what he called his American Farewell Tour (1824-1825).

 As they covered his father’s casket with dirt, he tearfully threw it on top.

 Why?

 Because his father always said, he had two countries.

  When Audrey Hepburn died in 1993 of colon cancer, I along with many others, was crestfallen.

From the time I saw her for the first time when I was 12 in the film, How To Steal A Million at Radio City Music Hall, she was my idol.

Appointed Goodwill Ambassador in 1988 of UNICEF, she became the greatest advocate for children they had ever had. When they told her if she had treatment for her cancer that would give her a few more months of life, but couldn’t go back to Somalia to finish her work, she chose the children.

  She died on January 30, 1993 with her two sons, Sean and Luca, and longtime love, Robert Wolders at her bedside.

  She’s buried in Tolochenez Cemetery in Tolochenez, Switzerland near her home of thirty years she named La Plaisible which means, Haven of Peace.

She was 63.   

 The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery has been guarded every minute since midnight July 2, 1937.

 How’s that for a poignant farewell?   

SB

Recommended Reading:

Lafayette…Harlow Giles Unger (1992) 

  Warrior; Audrey Hepburn…Robert Matzon (2021)

  On Hallowed Ground…Robert M. Poole (2009)