Here is the marker of a child not yet 2 1/2 years old
who died in 1954, and who has a nice bouquet of flowers
from a recent visitor. I tell my students that you are
not really dead until everyone has forgotten you.
The epitaph reads "Asleep in Jesus' Arms",
and there are symbols typical of those found on
children's marker: a lamb lying down, and a child in
pajamas kneeling at prayer.
Here is a whole section for children's graves. The
markers are small, and many are crowned with a small
angel. Seeing row after row of children's headstones is
difficult for nearly all of my students, many of whom
have children of their own, or nieces and nephews who
they are close to.
In the middle lies a 5 year old child who died over 50
years ago, on either side lie her parents. The flowers
are fresh. The child's grave has had fresh flowers on it
weekly ever since she died.
Visitors to this site will see only a large urn or
vase in the middle of a grassy space. There are no
headstones or other markers here, and so they will not
know that the whole area contains the unmarked graves of
children who perished in an orphanage fire many decades
ago. This vase was in memory of one of the little boys
who died, but there are no inscriptions on it.
It is bad enough to see the grave of a child and to
think of the anguish their parents must have gone
through, but to see a marker for two children from the
same family who died at the same time is particularly
devastating.