Baby

[Heather]

Baby

[Neville Briggs]

You've been walking down at the cemetery again Heather. One does wonder about the tragedy of young lives that lasted but just a small time, what could it mean ?
It's almost a Haiku. A poet said once that the importance of the haiku was the silences. I think that could apply to yours.

I know of several people who have just never recovered from the loss of a child.

In the big cemetery at Rookwood in Sydney there are a lot of graves of infants in the old 19th century section. Someone once pointed out to me how the sites often included next to the infant another headstone of a young girl with a different family name. The explanation this person thought, was that the young girls were the nannys who died at the same time as the child by catching the child's disease, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever etc.

[Maureen K Clifford]

This stands on its own beautifully Heather - but what a story you could weave around it

[william williams]

Why, A Question no mother can answer
Written in memory of 4 ½ year old Pamela
Who, was accidentally kicked by her pet young calf and died in her mothers arms in 1963

She held her to her bosom,.. the tears,.....they glistened in her eyes.
Her mind was full of hope, that was something! she could not deny.
With an aching heart that’s full of fear, she heard her child say.
Mommy,......can’t you hear him,......his voice it sounds so gentle.
And he’s calling out to me,.......I wish that I could go to him mummy,
I wish,..I wish some how.......Oh mummy please why not now.
I know my little darling,......I know god wants you so.
But please my little sweet heart,......she cried with a heart that’s torn apart
Please,...... please my little darling,...... please don’t go now.

written by bill williams ©



this I know is not ABPA standard but I wrote this with the feeling that a parent knows

[Heather]

Some of you know I have an attraction to an old cemetery in Kilmore. I worked there as a volunteer for about 8mths and knew it intimately at the time (2007), I've researched a lot of those residing there and I am on the cemetery trust so in effect I am their guardian. There are two that have really touched me. One is a small child's grave with a border of bricks - no way of identifying the child. The other is a headstone of a 6mths old child who died in 1850 - it's the oldest headstone in the cemetery. The headstone is sitting leaning against another grave and we have no way of knowing where it belongs.

Maureen one of my very first poems (my third I think) was about a little child's grave in the Kilmore Cemetery. My original poem is all over the shop and I can't fix it - it just doesn't work. So one day I wrote something entirely new and I am happy with it but I know that somewhere in me there is something better. I was playing around with a few things and thought that one little stanza does stand alone and I thought I'd see what you lot thought. It will probably grow one day.

This "grave" is purely ficticious though.

I don't need to walk in the cemetery Neville -I'd probably get stuck in the mud if I did at the moment - it's in my head (and plenty of photos on my computer!!)

Thanks for the comments.

Heather

[Heather]

That is a sad story Bill. Thanks for sharing it.

Heather

[Dave Smith]

Hi Heather we have just spent a long weekend up in gold fields (Kalgoorlie way) and spent some time at the old cemetery at Kanowna, there is nothing left of Kanowna except the cemetery.
The thing that is sad is that most of the old graves are babies or young mothers that died in childbirth. It was a hash country 100 years ago.
I do like your little verse.

TTFN

[Heather]

Thanks Dave. Old cemeteries are interesting but sad places. We don't know how lucky we are with modern medicine and good hygiene. There is one grave at Kilmore that has 8 children from the one family. From memory they had one child that made it to adulthood. Very sad.

Inscription

Gloria excelsis Deo
+
Erected by
MICHAEL O’DWYER
(cnenA)
IN MEMORY OF HIS BELOVED WIFE
BRIDGET LEAHY
NATIVE OF DUNOHIL, CO. TIPPERARY. IRELAND
DIED 17TH APRIL 1888. AGED 50 YEARS
ALSO THEIR CHILDREN
JOHANNA
DIED 24TH JUNE 1861. AGED 3 MONTHS
WILLIAM
DIED 25TH MAY 1865. AGED 1 MONTH
WILLIAM
DIED 24TH OCTR 1866. AGED 4 MONTHS
THOMAS
DIED 12TH JANY 1869. AGED 10 YEARS
RICHARD
DIED 2ND FEBY 1869. AGED 6 YEARS
MICHAEL
DIED 2ND FEBY 1869. AGED 7 YEARS
BRIDGET
DIED 24TH APRIL 1870. AGED 3 MONTHS
RICHARD
DIED 25TH NOVR 1873. AGED 3 MONTHS

Also the Above
MICHAEL O’DWYER
WHO DIED 12TH SEPT 1895
AGED 80 YEARS.
R.I.P.

[Neville Briggs]

Looks like they all might have contracted the same thing. Wasn't the highly contagious , tuberculosis, a common killer in those days??

[Heather]

From memory it was scarlet fever Neville - I'd have to check, it might have been typhoid. The other mass killers were dysentery and typhoid fever. The O'Dwyers lost three children in a matter of weeks in 1869. I cant imagine how devastating that would have been. If my memory serves me (and these days it's letting me down a bit!), of their 8 children, only one made it to adulthood. We don't know how lucky we are today with modern sanitation and anti-biotics - although we may not have anti-biotics for much longer at the rate resistance is occurring. We are looking at a world without anti-biotics which is really scary. I saw a little while back that there is only one anti-biotic that can now treat gonorrhea and once there is resistance to that anit-ibotic there will be no treatment. There's a lesson in there somewhere, probably several lessons!