pushing daisies

It was one of those lazy mornings. Weather neither good nor bad – they day could turn either which way. So I decided to make use of the morning. Taking my camera to a location, I had stumbled upon on one of my walks through the nearby countryside over winter: the Waldfriedhof (cemetery in the wood).

I quite liked it back then and maybe today was the day to check out, whether I would want to end up on it one day. One has to form an opinion on such things, is what I think. Otherwise, someone else makes the choices. And they can be very eerie – I found out shortly after. But let’s first get started with all the nice flowers …

And the nicer looking stones.

Maybe those pictures tell you, what I like, when it comes to gravestones: Keep it short and simple. I really liked the gray block just giving the name and lifespan of a certain Peter Apfelbaum (Peter Appletree, that reads in English). Nice name, nice way to be remembered, well done Peter! Or else, not even giving names or other details of the deceased, just the simple three words “geliebt und unvergessen” (loved and unforgotten). And I like Sonja’s grave, too – there is a little bird bath right in front of carved daisies. Same goes for the gree nstone of “Tante Margret 1922 – 2000”, which is Aunty Margret. I also liked the completely forgotten, wild grave, nothing left but a big fern, some weeds and a small nameplate put there by the authorities. Beside another tag reminding the family to tidy up (not on the pic) – this is Germany, after all -we have to have order here!

But now back to the more eerie choises to be made in the memorial business… like this certain Andreas Schulz. I don’t know, whether the deceased just loved his car so much or he just took against a wall in it. I checked the internet – he was neither a well known car designer nor a public figure at HDK (Hochschule der Künste = university of arts in Berlin), but led a logistic center at the Charité hospital in Berlin. All I know is, that Mr. Schulz or his family saw fit to put this stone atop his grave, crowned by a plastic case with a Porsche matchbox model car in it:

I still try to think up an immortal song line with Porsche – oh, wait, there is, thanks to Janis Joplin. But then again, it is more about the other fast car, isn’t it? Any which way – if the man was anything as outstanding as his gravestone is, he must have been a very remarkable person, indeed. I like the typo on the stone, though. Suggests a spaceship captain six feet under, rather than a head of logistics…

And then, of course, there is the more kitschy department, too. We are on a graveyard in the former GDR, right outside the Berlin wall, after all. Great taste is not, what the region is known for …

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All in all, it was a nice walk, though. And it certainly is a nice cemetary in the middle of a wood, located at the very border of a preserve area. So it is likely to stay this way for a long time. This fact is also making it attractive as a possible resting place for yours truly.

Maybe I will still opt to be taken back to Austria (which I had wanted for a long time) and be put to rest next to my dad, when my time comes. But the more sustainable choice would be, to stay here. Ah, we will see. Well, I won’t. But I will have to see to it, anyways…