Elergy in a Country Churchyard

My friend C tells me she wants to be buried (once she's dead, of course) in a particular country churchyard. I was surprised, as her church of choice had seemed to me rather a monster - an ancient, barn-like structure servicing a tiny hamlet, the few parishoners huddling together round an oil heater in the apse of a Sunday.

But the countryside is spectacular, and C's words made me revisit the place.

She's right. The churchyard is special, a complete history of local families over 200 years and more - the names of local farms and farmers echoing through generations. Ancient snaggle-toothed memorials watch over more recent sadnesses. Like the shiny granite slab engraved with a drumkit: propped against it, the framed photograph of a grinning young man.

There's a fabulous walk from the church, down a long avenue of slanting young birches past a beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse (whose earlier owners are back in the churchyard: even in death I envy them their former home). I've been here before, but one thing is new. A cluster of bouquets by the roadside, and with them another copy of that same photograph.

How did he die in such an empty, solitary place? There's nothing to crash into, no buildings, never any traffic. Such a short distance, with a wide world of possibilities still in view, to travel from death to eternity.

C will travel a longer journey, hopefully a long time hence, but perhaps she'll join the young drummer here one day. She's very pretty and sweet: they should hit it off well together.