My Strangely Upbeat Trip to the Cemetery

Want to know a good way to spend a cold, overcast Monday afternoon? Don't come here.

This afternoon, I found myself with some free time. After a delicious lunch with Andrew and Anne-Marie (Ann-Marie?), we decided to head on down to see Sir John A. MacDonald’s grave site.

This is just a few feet in front of the stone below...

You think George Washington gets a better grave?

I’ve spent just over 4 of the past 8 months in Kingston. It’s a nice town and all, but I wouldn’t want to live here. Kinda dumpy. One thing Kingston has over other cities, though, is the decomposing corpse of our first prime minister. John A. MacDonald’s gavesite is really rather modest. It’s sorta in the middle of this really old cemetery. There’s a really modest gravestone, and a little marker a few feet in front. He’s surrounded by his wife, a son that died in infancy, and two other people who I have never heard of. In the middle is this big obelisk, and the whole deal is fenced in by a nice-looking… fence. Just look at the photos and see for yourself just how unassuming the whole thing is.

I didn't know if I should smile or look sombre. On one hand, it was a guy's grave. On the other, he died 115 years ago, so it wasn't exactly sad. I decided to smile, since I wasn't feeling especially down or anything.

See, now this is sad - unless they're still alive, which I highly doubt.

We also took a stroll around the cemetery and checked out a few grave stones. One of them, for Edgar and Florence Smith, lists their birthdates, but not their death dates (even though the "19" part is chiselled in). Since they were both born in the early 1890s, I really doubt that they’re still alive. Isn’t that entirely depressing? Some couple bought themselves a headstone in the 50s or something, and then when they died, nobody cared to remember. I’ve included a photo so you, too, can be depressed about the whole thing.

Again, I apologize for having a post on what I did with my day, but I figured that, in this case, it was at least somewhat interesting.