I find forsaken cemeteries a tonic to modern ills. Whenever I spend time in untended graveyards I discover sentiments and farewells mourners hoped someone would read. I come away a better man.
Down a state highway into countryside I drove, then down an old road, and then a dirt road. There it was, the Ware Cemetery. Seashells covered two of its graves. I’ve seen solitary shells upon tombstones plenty of times. Here, I came upon two graves with mounds encased in scallop shells, a protective cover, like a shingled roof. This custom took place in the South during Reconstruction. African Americans placed shells on graves as a symbol. The sea brought them to America and when they died shells symbolized the next great crossing to the Promised Land.
A practical reason existed, too. During the hard, lean times of Reconstruction salt was hard to come by. A community’s salt-team would make an annual trip to the coast. There among rolling breakers, they boiled seawater till salt remained. They’d fish and pack their catch in salt and gather shells for funerals. Protection from the elements, a symbol of crossing over as spirits go, and sustenance, a by-product of gathering salt came together to leave us graves covered in seashells.
The old seashell-blessed cemeteries are winsome and they don’t depend on solar lights, plastic flowers, or marble mausoleums for their charm. They’re here because men made pilgrimages for brilliant white salt and white shells. Their shells have aged and grayed but their magnificence and significance remain.
I’ll continue to visit forgotten places where the departed sleep, seashells or not. Those who sleep know I visit them. Moreover, they know I bring them to the attention of others one more time. No one wants to be forgotten, especially the dead. To be completely forgotten is to never have existed at all.
An eloquent and beautiful tribute to those who have passed and lie under these beautiful shells. Thank you forwriting this.