magic_fella
Emma Thomas, Daughter of the Above
The gravestone is grown over now. Time has taken its toll. So has that moss that seems unique to very old graveyards.
I was in Irish cemetery, prowling around, introducing myself to the long-term residents.
It's probably a fanciful notion...but I cannot go to a graveyard, or look at a headstone without trying to imagine something about the person buried there.
This stone held my attention. It's not showy as headstones go. There's no weeping angel. No heart-breaking inscription.
What caught my attention was midway down. There's a single line: Emma Thomas, Daughter of the Above.
I went closer and scraped away some of the growth. I remember a pungent smell rose as the moss came off.
Emma was fifteen when she died.
I tried to imagine her. Was she a dutiful daughter -- or was she an unfashionably independent thinker? When she got angry did her eyes flash…or did she avert them? What did her laugh sound like? Did she distain needlepoint? Did she sing happy songs that made Robert Thomas (the "Above") smile when she was a little girl?
Had she ever been kissed? Had she met a boy that made her heart dance like a bird trapped in her chest? (I find myself hoping very, very hard that she did...) What did she imagine in her moments alone when she looked out of frosty windows? What did her secret heart yearn for?
How did she die? A lingering illness? A sudden accident? Murder?
I wonder if the people who came to this very spot over two hundred years ago, wept as she was put in the ground. I wonder if there was someone in the group of mourners who was secretly and darkly rejoicing. All those people are gone now, resting in their own graves, so there’s no one to ask.
The headstone gives no hint. It just sits there like...well...a rock.
There's no additional line like "She will be missed" or "Our beloved child." Nada. Just that one single line, and the record of a tragically short lifeline.
I was trying to think how to convey that speculation in an image. After all, by now I kind of feel like I know her…and I want the image to do her justice. So I have taken a statue of a young girl from a museum in Glasgow, shaded the face and added a gentle corona and mixed that into a sort of dreamy image.
I wanted the gravestone stark, sharp. Cold.
I wanted ‘Emma’ to be soft and ill-defined. I have no idea what she looked like, so I was trying to show the IDEA of Emma more than Emma herself.
I added color to the flowers growing on her grave, because every young lady should get flowers at least once.
Finally I wonder what Emma would think, looking at this image, reading these imaginings about her. Would she laugh? Would she be enchanted … embarrassed … indifferent? Would she be pleased that someone two hundred years later would be thinking about her?
I’ll never know.
Ah well. Good night, Emma.
Sleep well.
Emma Thomas, Daughter of the Above
The gravestone is grown over now. Time has taken its toll. So has that moss that seems unique to very old graveyards.
I was in Irish cemetery, prowling around, introducing myself to the long-term residents.
It's probably a fanciful notion...but I cannot go to a graveyard, or look at a headstone without trying to imagine something about the person buried there.
This stone held my attention. It's not showy as headstones go. There's no weeping angel. No heart-breaking inscription.
What caught my attention was midway down. There's a single line: Emma Thomas, Daughter of the Above.
I went closer and scraped away some of the growth. I remember a pungent smell rose as the moss came off.
Emma was fifteen when she died.
I tried to imagine her. Was she a dutiful daughter -- or was she an unfashionably independent thinker? When she got angry did her eyes flash…or did she avert them? What did her laugh sound like? Did she distain needlepoint? Did she sing happy songs that made Robert Thomas (the "Above") smile when she was a little girl?
Had she ever been kissed? Had she met a boy that made her heart dance like a bird trapped in her chest? (I find myself hoping very, very hard that she did...) What did she imagine in her moments alone when she looked out of frosty windows? What did her secret heart yearn for?
How did she die? A lingering illness? A sudden accident? Murder?
I wonder if the people who came to this very spot over two hundred years ago, wept as she was put in the ground. I wonder if there was someone in the group of mourners who was secretly and darkly rejoicing. All those people are gone now, resting in their own graves, so there’s no one to ask.
The headstone gives no hint. It just sits there like...well...a rock.
There's no additional line like "She will be missed" or "Our beloved child." Nada. Just that one single line, and the record of a tragically short lifeline.
I was trying to think how to convey that speculation in an image. After all, by now I kind of feel like I know her…and I want the image to do her justice. So I have taken a statue of a young girl from a museum in Glasgow, shaded the face and added a gentle corona and mixed that into a sort of dreamy image.
I wanted the gravestone stark, sharp. Cold.
I wanted ‘Emma’ to be soft and ill-defined. I have no idea what she looked like, so I was trying to show the IDEA of Emma more than Emma herself.
I added color to the flowers growing on her grave, because every young lady should get flowers at least once.
Finally I wonder what Emma would think, looking at this image, reading these imaginings about her. Would she laugh? Would she be enchanted … embarrassed … indifferent? Would she be pleased that someone two hundred years later would be thinking about her?
I’ll never know.
Ah well. Good night, Emma.
Sleep well.