Cemetery in Hartford, Ct 2013

I don't know what it is that I like about cemeteries. For some reason instead of being filled with sadness when I visit them, I find them peaceful and feel a certain calmness. Every time I visit I like to take pictures. It just seems that they reveal so much about human nature. Each stone represents someone's life. Each stone shows how the family wanted to reflect upon your life. Whether it is a simple stone, extravagant, small or big, each one represents a human being, someone who once walked this earth making memories, celebrating life, being a brother, sister, mom, dad, daughter, son. Each person was once here. Where are they now? Are they looking down on us from Heaven, or maybe they are standing right next to us, in a different dimension? Can they see us now, but we can't see them? Do they watch as their family members come to mourn not being able to spend time with them anymore? So many questions. Yet unlike allegedly haunted houses or hotels, both of which I love going too, there seems to be much more of a calmness here, at a cemetery.

Here are the pictures I took from Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground.

First a note about Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground:

This cemetery is the oldest historic site in Hartford, Ct.  It was Hartford's main graveyard from 1640, four years after the arrival of the first English settlers,  until the early 1800s. During that period anyone who died in town, regardless of age, gender, race, ethnic background, economic status, or religious faith, was buried here. The oldest gravestone is believed to be that for Timothy Stanley, who died in 1648.

There are roughly 6,000 men, women, and children are believed to have been interred in the Ancient Burying Ground,. Unfortunately many graves have been built over. There is only a small portion of the original graveyard still standing. Sadly commercial buildings, as well as the First Congregational meeting house, were erected on Burying Ground land, whittling it down it to its present size of four acres.

Hartford, Connecticut

This graveyard is right smack in the middle of downtown Hartford. It is surreal to be standing next to these silent graves then to look up to see buses and tall building and people scrambling around going on with life.

This building is to the side of the  Hartford Ancient Burying Ground.

Tombstones from the "Ancient Hartford Burial Ground."

What passes through your head when you see a stone, lying on it's side, so still?

My boyfriend walking through the cemetery with me trying to find EVPS. 

Here I'm sitting next to the oldest marker.

This graveyard is surrounded with city life, the whole side is now apartment buildings, commercial buildings and busy streets. Just a light chain link fence surrounds this cemetery.

I found a blog, which I can't find now, that asked, "what if we all buried a tree instead of erecting a gravestone at each grave? I thought that would be such a wonderful idea. Can you imagine just walking through beautiful forests of trees looking for your loved one? How serene.