Gateways, Lakewood Cemetery near Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 2008. Spring blooms in Babyland, near the Chinese Community Memorial. Photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
white-belled bleeding hearts
spring sweeps through silent gateways
cemetery pause
-posted on red Ravine, Friday, May 9th, 2008
-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)
like the use of bleeding hearts–nice haiku
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this is beautiful, and the picture is breath-taking.
i have to ask, what exactly is babyland?
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Scot, thank you. Liz mentioned the bleeding hearts had just gotten their little bells on. The double meaning just seemed to work.
Scaramastra, Babyland is a section of the cemetery where the young babies have been laid to rest. I have started to take notice of these sections of cemeteries ever since Mom and I were in Georgia, I guess around 7 years ago now, and made a round of the cemeteries to honor our heritage.
Mom was looking for her sister, a baby my grandmother had lost to crib death. Mom mentioned she was buried with “the babies” and that was the first time I had heard that there were sections that were specifically to honor the young ones. They tend to be tender places, and I’ve noticed they are visited frequently by others and contain toys and tender messages to those lost. This tree was in the center of Babyland in Lakewood.
Thank you for the compliment on the photo. There is something about this one that I really liked. I think it was the motion of the wind blowing the toys in the tree. It was a beautiful day last weekend. And the little Spirits were all at play. It was a wonderful walk.
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QM, I love this photo, too. The branches of the tree are so dark, almost black. And the leaves — they look a golden orange. Are those from last season?
When I first read the haiku, which I love, I thought it was “white-bellied” bleeding hearts.
The expansion on Babyland is interesting. I didn’t know that cemeteries had special sections for babies. I wonder if that’s an old approach. I would think families would want babies in family plots.
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My little Pookie is there. She would’ve been 23 now.
ybonesy,
Often times there is no family plot when babies die, unless it is something the grandparents had arranged. The parents usually are of the age where they are not quite yet thinking about where they are going to be buried, and definately not thinking about any of their children dying. Oftentimes too, family finances are not such that they cannot afford to buy family plots of their own yet.
Also family plots do not have children sized plots, so adult plots must be purchased. When Little One’s pass on, it is a professional practice of the ‘funeral community’ to only charge cost, making no profit off of such a loss, so Babyland plots are ‘at cost’. I’m pretty sure almost all cemetaries have one. Such sections may have started when people were losing children to the plague back in the 1800’s.
When Allison died, we were in our twenties, all the plots in the family plots were either spoken for, too far away, or too distant in the family tree for us to believe to be acceptable.
There is something comforting in knowing that my Little One is in such a beautiful place. I do not go there as much as I did 10 years ago, but it has always been a place of peace. Even driving on the parkway, I glance over at where “Babyland” is on the other side of the fence.
I like this pic too. The pinwheel and windchimes in the breeze does capture the melancholy sweetness of the place.
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Thanks for stopping and telling us a little about you and Allison. And thanks for addressing my question about family plots. I don’t know a thing about them, but yes, that makes sense that they would need to be purchased early, well before death, and no one of course ever plans for the death of a child.
Your words have such a peacefulness to them. I like the way described the place — its “melancholy sweetness.”
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Allisons mom, I wanted to come back to this post and tell you how touched I was to read your comment. I saw it when I was on the road last week and it really hit home. My brother had been in the ICU in the hospital the week before and almost died. And my mother and I were visiting the old family plots down in Georgia and paying our respects. So I was thinking quite a bit about the other side of life.
I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose a child. One of the graves we visited in Georgia was in a Babyland there — it’s the grave of my mother’s sister who died as an infant. I think my grandmother was in a similar situation in choosing to bury Angelia in Babyland. I don’t think she had the money to do much else at that time either — it was the 1950’s.
I have a whole other piece in draft form on Lakewood Cemetery that I wrote quite a while ago but I just never got it posted. Your comment has motivated me to finish it. It’s a wonderful place full of history, fountains, lots of green and good energy. Families in the 1800’s used to visit Lakewood on Sundays and have picnics. I am glad your Allison is at rest there. And I’ll think of her next time I visit.
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