Cemetery Reflections, by Jane Hopkins, explores the styles of architecture and epitaphs in graveyards over three centuries. The book is divided into two, with the first part presenting an overview of such cemetery features, largely from the East Coast of the United States, and ranging from memorial parks to columbariums for the cremated. The second part of Cemetery Reflections focuses on a more intimate expression of grief and the experience of death and dying. The importance of setting, whether part of a broader landscape or in close-ups, is shown throughout. The loss of the young in military conflict is also a key element of this text.

I found the full-color and black-and-white photographs that accompany the epitaphs in Jane Hopkins’ Cemetery Reflections especially poignant in their illustration of children and animals. The overwhelming nature of death is made apparent in those cases where a number of deaths are recorded as occurring in close conjunction with one another, and the reader can only imagine what grief and heartbreak was involved. The photographs that are taken from Hopkins’ family archives, and the instances of her own writing, make this work, at least in part, a personal tribute to her own kith and kin. The blending of public and private make Cemetery Reflections a memorable volume that serves as a fitting tribute to those who have gone before us and who have left their mark on the landscape, whether domestic or embedded within a wider realm.

There is peace and solitude in these vast spaces where stones mark the final resting place of so many. There are also countless stories of dreams shared, some achieved and some lost; stories of love, war, famine, and disease that took so many so soon and so unexpectedly. Cemeteries are chapters in our history, for that’s what stories tell. They represent those fortunate enough to have been loved enough that they are remembered and honored with fitting effigies and epitaphs of profound affection. “A cemetery is a public acknowledgment of lives lived, wishes and dreams fulfilled and lost.” as Hopkins’ book concludes.

I frequently wander around local cemeteries, paying my own personal tribute to those I never had the privilege of meeting, wondering about the lives of those honored by a marked stone, a mausoleum, or a carving of angels. I want to hear the stories that lie beneath my feet and capture their lives in my mind for all time. “Each headstone represents a personal story of someone’s journey here on earth and its connection to a larger web of human history.” After three years of suffering through a pandemic, unable to visit loved ones, watching so many die and be buried without the usual fanfare of a public funeral, we need to witness these stories in a quiet way, ponder the lives of others as we ponder our own inevitable mortality.

Of similar mind, Jane Hopkins approached her project, Cemetery Reflections, a book of photographic and poetic mementoes of lives past. She visited countless cemeteries in the Eastern United States and made a photographic record of their fascinating tombstones and the inscriptions on many. Her photographs are spectacular, effigies in their own visual records. Each image is accompanied by a poem or a script, either from the writing on specific tombstones, or from famous authors through the ages. With a fascinating and intuitive preface and introduction, the reader is left to peruse these timeless records of humanity and the honor we pass on to those who went before us. This is a great book to study at one’s leisure, to reflect on the infinite wonders of life, and to come to terms with one’s own grief over losing a loved one.