Visiting the dead

 

                           Chaucer's Tomb, Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey

 Twice a year, when I was a child my grandmother, mother, brother and I would trek to the cemetery where my grandfather, uncle and aunt were buried. My grandmother would plant long-lasting flowers.

I've never returned to that cemetery nor have I visited my father's resting place. I'm even sure the exact spot my mother's ashes are scattered, although I know the general location.

I don't have to visit them. They exist in my heart and memory.

However, I've had a fascination of visiting historical figures: kings, queens, writers, artists, poets. 

My first pilgrimage was to Chaucer's tomb. I felt as if I could tell him, how much I liked his tales, and how I would especially like to meet the nun. Years later, in a Geneva Museum, I was to see one of the original copies of this work. To think his hand had touched the manuscript in the 1300s.

I could not leave the abbey without a visit to Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots and Mary Tudor, conveniently arranged together.  I wondered how these three powerful women, enemies in life, would feel spending eternity together.

In Auvers-sur-Oise, France I stood before the simple graves of Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo's and wished he could have known of his after-death success. 

At Pere Lachaise in Paris, I picked up a pebble and touched Colette's black and rust stone. For years it was near my computer hoping that her spirit would carry itself into my own writing.

When my husband wanted to give me a party for my 75th, I told him what I really, really wanted was to visit the gave of Eleanor of Aquitaine.  

Off to the abbey at Fontevraud we went. She was a woman of great learning, influence and the arts at a time when women weren't all that important. I've read and read about her life. Katherine Hepburn gave her a new life in Lion in Winter. Considering Eleanor's love of poetry, it seemed right the carving on her tomb has her holding a book. 

There was something terribly efficient, that I could also see the tombs of Richard the Lionhearted, her son, and her husband, lover and enemy Henry II.

There are other graves I've visited including William the Conqueror, although only his leg bone may be interred. That same trip allowed me to see the Bayeux Tapestry, another of my historical visiting goals. In the 1990s, I saw a copy at a museum in Reading, England. It tells the story of William's 1066 battle and allegedly was attributed to his Queen Matilda. 

There are others whom I've visited and more that I would like to see. Pompeii is my next goal, Covid-willing.

My mother once said she didn't need to travel. She could read about whatever was there in the world to see. Even better there might be something on television.

I didn't try to convince her it is not the same thing as being on the spot where an event happened. Of course, there are changes around wherever something took place, but for me the aura of the past lingers bringing to life the past to be enjoyed at the moment.