My daughter wants to grow up to be a pirate. When I planned our annual August vacation to visit my parents in Michigan, my mom suggested we make a road trip into Canada to see The Pirates of Penzance at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario.
Of course, I promptly jumped on the internet to check if Stratford had a cemetery worth visiting.
Avondale Cemetery is lovely. (It will be the Cemetery of the Week tomorrow.) The cemetery rises from the road to a high flat spot that overlooks a cornfield which seemed to stretch off into space. While my dad waited in the air-conditioned Buick and my daughter sat in the grass under an old pine tree to read a book about befriending unicorns, I poked around with my camera, trying to sum the place up in one perfect image.
The photo above was the last one I took before we had to run back into town to pick my mother up from her visit to the theater museum. I was drawn to this headstone because of its shape. Books aren’t rare in graveyards, but they are uncommon. I don’t remember ever seeing one standing up like this one. I like the crease on its spine and the grooves that indicate the pages. I like its size and its heft, its permanence.
I especially like that Evelyn survived Harold for 32 years, but she chose to be reunited with him in the end. I wondered what stories the real book of their love would tell.
Cemetery of the Week #72: Avondale Cemetery, Stratford, Ontario, Canada
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