Does your Mortality cause you anxiety?

On one of our jaunts this visit, we whipped passed Kensal Green Cemetery and Steve said it was huge and he thought there were some majorly famous folk buried there. I do love a bit of a wander around the grave stones and I have never been fearful of the rising spirit world, so yesterday when serendippity found us on a bus going right passed it on our way to somewhere else, we jumped off for a bit of a look see.

Now I have spent many hours trolling around Aussie graveyards and they are very often  full of blunt yarns of death. I guess that's the way with us Aussies. 'Derek died in the mine collapse of '62.'  'Lucas fell to his death as he leapt from his mistress' window upon the untimely return of her husband' 'Ingrid died delivering baby number 11' If you wander around country cemeteries in Oz, it's possible to get a real good idea of the history of the place.

But in typical Pommie fashion the brash causes of deaths are washed over. 'Gertrude fell asleep' 'Nigel fell asleep' 'Paul fell asleep'. Seriously if you went into Kensal Green and saw how many of the dead folk 'fell asleep' well let's just say insomnia might be the norm. Who would want to risk ending up under a pile of granite by going night night?

The money splashed about on the gravestones and the sculptures and the mausoleums got me to thinking. Of course people can spend their money on whatever tat they like and I suppose there is some consolation to those left behind if they spend a whack of wonga at the stone masons so that everyone in the town knows how much they loved or admired or feared the dead fella, but I just reckon it's a terrible waste. Better to burn the bod and sprinkle the ashes and then instead use the cash for a good old booze up or a new pair of shoes.

In the long run, what becomes of the money questionably spent? The head stones fall over and some vagrant moves into the mausoleum and the angel sculpture loses an arm. The area almost certainly falls into disrepair and as it is a public space, you have no control over the poor taste of the neighbours which manifests itself into faded shit ugly plastic flowers. Oh sure for perhaps a generation the grave may be well kept but after that it just becomes another place for a yobbo yomping Aussie to troop past snapping piccies for her blog.

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