My holiday is coming to an end and I felt like I needed a bit of perspective before going back into the battlefield of work. So what better place to look for it than in an old, peaceful graveyard. A bit morbid I know but it kind of helped.
But then Rookwood Cemetery is not just any graveyard. It is the largest multicultural cemetery in the Southern Hemisphere. It is estimated that approximately one million people have been buried here. The cemetery covers an area of over 300 hectares (the size of 600 football fields!!). Absolutely enormous, so much so that the cemetery is considered a separate suburb of Sydney.
Some older sections of Rookwood are overgrown with a riot of plants, some now large trees or groves, as well as an interesting array of remnant indigenous flora. It's peaceful and green and the graveyard stones often make for interesting reading (sometimes inspiring, sometimes sad).
Some of the gravestones in the older Victorian section of the cemetery have been completely "rubbed off" with age so it's impossible to know who's even buried there. Long forgotten. Makes you think. No doubt, we'll be remembered through our children and grandchildren but within a few generations, most of us will likely be completely forgotten. Our achievements, our dreams, our quirks, our woes. All lost through the passage of time. Kind of makes our daily troubles seem a little less significant and daunting. But then, that's said by someone who's been on holiday for two weeks. Ask me again on Monday...
