A Cemetery Ghost? : Gone But Not Forgotten

Wordless Wednesday???
Not this week.
I just have too much to say for this Wednesday's post to be wordless! Wordless Wednesday will be back next week.

*** I want to first remind you about my giveaway going on this week. If you have not entered, please click HERE and enter your comment on MONDAY'S post for your chance to win my prize package this week. ***

........Now, Let me tell you what happened over the weekend. Steve and I went driving on Saturday. I wanted to take some pictures to use this week in my posts. After a not so productive afternoon, we were headed home. Steve suggested we stop at a cemetery close to our home. It is the Historic Handley Cemetery located in the heart of Ft. Worth, Texas. It is very small, with lots of old graves, and the sad thing is, it sits right at the base of a power plant now. Sad in my way of thinking.

The cemetery is really small. It has old graves and the last person buried there was in the late 1960's. You can just tell be walking around that these graves are long forgotten by distant relatives, or maybe not forgotten, just never known. I always get a sense of forlorn when I see that no one visits old cemeteries.



As usual, Steve went on his way and walked the whole thing long before I had ever got started. There is really nothing I love to do that rivals walking through an old cemetery. I just love doing that. I find it very interesting. I always am curious about the people, where they lived, their stories, and what their lives were like. In this particular cemetery, most lived very short lives. It makes you stop and think how hard and brutal life must have been just a few short 100 plus years ago.


I had great fun snapping photos at this location. I could not believe I had lived over 20 years near this place and had never stopped to have a look around.


There was one grave in particular which drew my eye. It was situated in the back, under several small shade trees. This particular grave had the most beautiful ornate iron work around it. The iron gate was amazing in itself. I stood several moments before I ever took a single photo. I learned this was the grave of a man named Henry Butler. He was born May 4, 1841 and died March 19, 1880. Very young indeed. As I was reading his headstone, the bottom inscription said "Gone but not forgotten."


I looked around at the despair of the grave and said out loud, "Well, Henry, it looks like you were certainly forgotten, I am sorry for that." Then I started snapping photos. I was concentrating on trying to get the beautiful iron gate and the headstone in the frame of my camera, and in a fleeting instant, I felt something cold touch my right arm......and I am here to tell you, I was not touching anything but my camera. I was not scared, and it was so fleeting I did not think too much of it. But it did happen and it was enough for me to take notice of it.

I soon met up with Steve and we decided to head home. Once we were in the truck I was rattling on about how much fun that was, and I asked him if he felt anything in the cemetery....you know like a presence or something... He just looked over at me like I had sprouted horns and said, "NO." He thinks I am a bit strange at times I am sure.

I was eager to get the photos downloaded onto the computer so that is what I did as soon as I got home. Once the images were on the computer and I was looking over the photos from the cemetery visit; I got chills of a different kind.

When the shots of Henry's grave came on the screen, I sat there frozen. Then I started yelling at Steve to "Come here quick!" "Hurry!" He strolled into the office like he did not have a care in the world, he was not too interested in any of the photos, after all, he had seen it first hand.

Me: "LOOK!"

Steve: "What?"

I could not believe he did not see it.

Me: "Don't you see it?"

Steve: "What?"

Me: "The orb. It's Henry of course!"

Steve: "Henry? Don't you think that might be a sun spot?"

Me: "No. I was totally in the shade. It's Henry!"

Me: "See, here he is, the blue orb on the right side of the photo, the same side I told you I felt a cold feeling when I was taking the photo."

Steve: "They have padded rooms available for folks like you."

He walked out the door shaking his head. I stared back at my photo, smiling because in my mind this was Henry saying hello, and happy someone paid him a visit. I can not help but smile and wonder what Henry would think about his headstone being posted on the Internet some 128 years after his death.
I think he would be honored.....and yes, happy he is not forgotten.