Birdsong.

A slight breeze in the pines.

Two squirrels scurrying up a tree. 

These are the things I noticed first. Then I realized I could actually hear some street noises but the sounds of nature were so distracting, the city traffic took a back seat.

I was at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum, one of the nation’s most extraordinary final resting places in the nation.

It was mid October but the trees were still mostly green around Cincinnati. It was a cool morning that felt like fall and the occasional small pop of color helped to make it feel more authentically fall even if the color wasn’t that much. 

We walked part of the cemetery’s historic section twice last week, admiring the scenery and scrambling from one extraordinary headstone to even more magnificent ones. We read names and dates and tried to decipher the meanings of the iconography. I was reminded of a book on cemetery iconography that I should have bought.

There’s so much to see here. Some of the mausoleums are getting much needed TLC including the Dexter. This one is the crown jewel of Spring Grove and was probably the Bentley of mausoleums when it was built.

Scaffolding and caution tape distract from nature’s gifts but warmed my cynical heart because construction means that someone is caring for this  historic structure. 

Sea captains, infants, politicians and women who are known mostly as the wife of some man, all receive equal treatment here. Death knows no bounds and no mercy to young or old. All are gone from this earth but each have something to remind everyone else that they once lived.

And in the end, isn’t that what we all want? We just want to make sure that we will be remembered for having lived and that those we care about won’t be forgotten either. 

Spring Grove. If you’ve never been there, you won’t understand the magnitude and the significance of this incredible place. If you have been, you understand why I like to return and why I wish to see it in every season.