How a century-old headstone reveals the power of belonging

April 16, 2026 — 11:30am

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A cold wind swept the old graveyard, grey headstones standing like rows of uneven teeth.

We were alone. Few, we figured, bothered to visit this place.

The cemetery sat way off the main road; a lonely paddock fenced off from farms around, the grass around the older tombstones spindly and unkempt.

We had come in search of just one of those headstones.

Relatives passed the hat around a year or so back to get the old stone cleaned up and the inscription, worn and faded by a century of wind, rain and sun-blast, restored in gilt.

And so, having been to this place only once, years before, I felt impelled to revisit and cast an eye upon the new work, and, as the saying goes, pay my respects to those who had lain beneath the ground for so long.

After a bit of wandering about, we found the cleaned-up stone among a gathering of venerable upright memorials that – for a reason lost on me – faced into a far corner of the graveyard, hunkered together with their backs to all the other expired inhabitants. If this were a social gathering, the group was decidedly antisocial. But of course, no one here had reason left to avoid their fellows.

Here were buried together the bones of my maternal great-grandparents, named Thomas and Isabella.

Having never known them, for they died in 1921 and 1923, I was taken quite by........

© The Sydney Morning Herald