To pause in graveyard and weep at this

[BellaMagnificat]

Saddest I saw was this (witholding the family name)

In loving memory

Harold 1893-1896

Samuel 1904-1905

Wilfred 1897-1916 Killed in action

Ethel 1891-1917

Mabel 1893-1923

Nora 1900-1929

How utterly cruel. How did the families ever get past it?

i don't think it's about "saving" tears for gods sake.
you are either moved or you are not, by the multiple deaths of babies and small children, regardless of wether you know them or not.
Emotion isn't like switching an on off button - oh, i am not related to them , so i will not cry. You either empathize or you don't. Salmotrutta clearly doesn't, but that doesn't give her the right to castigate people who do

i jsut wanted to point out i posted families were bigger then, as i assumed it was a family plot, but hadnt noticed the dates of birth in relation to the dates of death.

I can completely understand it's upsetting.

What I can't understand is WHY start a thread about it?

Do you want a medal for being compassionate?

YANBU Bella.

There is a grave in the cemetary here that always gives me pause:

Elizabeth Calder, 1862-1907

Spinster

OK Cotswold - I explained on the previous page. I'm just not the kind of person who cries much.
I also explained that it's not a particularly good thing - I bottle things up.

I would like to apologise to the OP actually - I was very unfair and that wasn't nice. I could blame the wine last night but that would be a cop out.

I do feel sad about many things past and present - I just don't cry. And I don't actually like that feeling of not being able to release emotions because it does make me come across as hard-hearted.

Sorry Bella

Still happens! Families all over Africa, India (everywhere but the west) where many children die before age of 5, sometimes preventable, sometimes just how it is. Don't know why we think it's sadder in our own graveyards.

Salmo I don't think that you're unreasonable not to cry! A lot of people I know wouldn't.

My comments earlier were directed to people who think it's odd that some of us do cry. We all respond differently to emotion, don't we? :)

Inky I'd cry for them too of course!

youmakeme......op has started an interesting thread!!! many many threads here daily about twaddle,this one is interesting. nobody is asking for a medal!

i used to enjoy walking through the graveyard, old, interesting graves, names.. hard to read.
until a member of my family was buried there
i dont go now

ILove I know you would - I was reminded of Comic Relief films from Africa.

Of course YANBU! It's a graveyard. If you are moved by such things then how can it possibly be unreasonable.

Salmo I respect the not crying as much as I respect the empathy. I respect your apology and your own insight hugely.

I don't think it's competitive empathy so much as an observation myself (this thread)

I rarely cry at films, graves etc and would be unlikely to post this thread but I understand the intention of it

sorry Cheerful - I meant you - as well!

Yes Cheerful I know - I was mean though last night.

Maybe I envy people who can free up their emotions in a way I just don't seem to be able to do. Mine tends to come out as anxiety.

YANBU.

At the end of the row that my son is buried in, there is a grave of a little boy, called Edward, who died at just 18 months in 1936. On his headstone it reads 'Step softly, for a dream lay here' it is so so sad.

Thanks RailwayChild - I've learned from this.

Salmotrutta - if you really want to learn how to release your emotions, have you tried anything to help you? any form of therapy or counselling? Do you know what is in your background that prevents you from showing your emotions? Just asking because you seem to be wishing that you could change your response.

thumbwitch - I think it's just the way I'm "made". I kind of go onto auto-pilot when bad things happen if that makes sense. I do cry when people die etc. but it's more the sort of lump-in-the throat, welling up rather than real crying. And not quite knowing what to do with myself - sort of wanting to run away IYKWIM?
I'm not sure I necessarily want to change my response but sometimes I wonder if it's "bad" for me not to be able to cry properly.

Salmo - apology accepted - that was very decent of you Everyone expresses emotion in their own way. I have got more demonstrative and empathetic as I've got older and life stuff happenes. As a child I wasn't allowed to cry.

As to why I started the thread, I just thought it was so sad and told so much about the history of one family, I suppose - I wanted to share it I guess.

I didn't want to be mawkish or ghoulish - and I certainly wasn't after a compassion medal

My mother is one of three children. Her brother died at 22 yrs old tragically inhaling his own vomit, and her sister dies aged 3 months from pneumonia. My mum is now 79 yrs old an wonders why she is still here. :(

Thank you Bella - actually this thread has made me think about my own responses to grief etc. Maybe my response is to sort of "sweep things under the carpet", and it'll all go away.

I think it is right to think about these things, and if that makes you cry so be it.

I think it as a society we can be a bit disrespectful about the past, and we tend to forget that these exciting gravestones and bones and things belonged to real people.

I work a lot with family books from around 1350-1450 and some of them are very poignant. There are prayer books where someone has recorded the death of a mother or child and the page is rubbed thin because the person kept looking at that date and remembering and praying. I think it's incredibly important to acknowledge that.

I don't think it's mawkish at all - it's a mark of respect. I think if you start saying 'oh, things were different in the past, people didn't grieve like we do' (which is rubbish - just look at Ben Jonson's poem's for his dead children), we're being inhumane.