It might sound morbid, but I’ve been reading a lot of epitaphs lately. It’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time in a cemetery. Melbourne General Cemetery, to be precise.
I go there most days, via the Macpherson Street gates. On entering, the road is flanked with contemporary graves. Many of these are Italian. Their epitaphs are mostly brief, though flush with sentiment.
Beyond that stretch, the road diverts. I head right and curve toward the Princes Park side to one of many Roman Catholic sections. On the way, by the road, an especially eye-catching memorial. A bronze head upon a tall, granite pedestal.
It’s Carmelo. We share the same birthday. He died when he was 29.
On the dark granite, this poem:
Nell’ oscurita notturna In the darkness of night
Une luce divina squarcio A ray of divine light
Le tenebre, era un’ angelo. In the shadows was an angel.
Si fermo per raccogliere He stopped to pick
Un fiore, il piu bello. A flower, the most beautiful one.
Lo porto con se. He took it with him.
Visita senza aspettata A visit with purpose
Gioventu spezzata. A young life cut short.
In the black and white photo, Carmelo looks like a young Rocky Marciano. He stares out to the world with defiant promise.
A car crash? A workplace accident? Illness? I’ll never know.
Recently, the pedestal was knocked over, the bronze head detached. I felt a terrible shock when I saw it. The next day, the head was gone.
I imagined his family arriving without forewarning, flowers in hand, to that scene. Those who knew him, who penned those words.
I leave the road and walk through the older, back rows of the cemetery. Here there is less order, with graves running in all directions. Huge eucalypts tower above, their roots rupturing these ancient graves, their inhabitants.
I prefer this wildness. It’s where weeds flourish and the animals rule—foxes, rabbits, and all kinds of birds.
The currawongs are my favourite—the royalty of this place. They land atop headstones like dark princes, fixing me with a steely eye. Their exquisite, mournful call.
Many buried here are terribly young. Multiple children from one family, all before their fifth birthday. A twelve year-old, killed at a worksite.
Gioventu spezzata. A young life cut short.
I walk on through the ordered rows of nuns and priests, where epitaphs are especially brief. Most include only dates of birth and death. Some just their death.
I remember the undertaker telling me how nuns always get the more expensive coffins, the priests much cheaper. Something to do with their sacrifice in life, he said. I have no idea if this is true, or why he told me.
But I remember choosing the coffin. Not too ostentatious, but not too humble either. Something in between.
I approach my destination. In the torrid weeks following the death of a loved one, there’s little sense in anything. Even less in where you choose a gravesite.
But it seemed a good spot—near a toilet, and the shelter of the mausoleum. In the peculiar logic of grief, it made sense. It also overlooks the park, where life carries on in defiance of this place, this truth.
Among these graves, only three are recent.
First, there’s Daniel.
Like Carmelo, he smiles out to the world with sunny expectation. Like Carmelo, his time here was terribly short. Just 33.
His epitaph is brief, but loving. And I know some of his story, but not all. In my visits, I’ve met his family, still riven by grief.
Visita senza aspettata A visit with purpose
Gioventu spezzata. A young life cut short.
A shark attack. Among the most unlucky, surely.
I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to hear such news, and failed. Lives upended, changed forever, in a few words.
And it is just a few words we are left with in the end—to mark someone’s life, their imprint upon us. For writers, this is the ultimate constraint. To capture the essence of a loved one in a sentence, perhaps two. Impossible.
Truth is, all the words could never relate what it is to have loved—they can only offer the most faded impression. Instead, it rests in the hearts of those left behind, in their fragile hold of memories. Their grief.
Then, there’s Alfonso.
In the days after he was buried, I saw a young man not far from his grave. He had long hair, a backpack. He looked lost. There was no headstone then, just a simple crucifix with a name plate. I helped him find the grave, and there he sat cross-legged, in quiet reverence. I passed by hours later, and he was still there.
Since then, I’ve met Alfonso’s wife. She told me some of how he lived. He started a school for struggling students, left behind by the mainstream system. He changed many lives.
Nell’ oscurita notturna In the darkness of night
Une luce divina squarcio A ray of divine light
Then, one evening, he collapsed on the floor.
She told me how she ran out into the street, calling for help. How she watched as the paramedics worked on him. How she saw the life slowly draining from his face.
And then, finally, there’s the grave I am there to visit.
The stonework is complete now, the words. I never read them. Anything that could be written would fall short.
Because I’ve learned that no words can do justice in this place. Yet we try to make meaning where there is none—this futile, essential task.
In the weeks after his burial, when there was just a mound of earth, I would see him sometimes. He’d be standing in the row behind, hands in his pockets, in his woollen cap. There was a small smile at the edge of his lips. He’d cross his arms.
Then, sometimes, he would speak.
‘It’s cold,’ he’d say.
But since the stonework was laid, the epitaph written, it’s become harder to see him. The photo, the gold leaf, the words—somehow, they only obscure.
So I light a candle instead. I sit. And I close my eyes.
It’s then I can remember. It’s then I can see.
Un fiore, il piu bello. A flower, the most beautiful one.
For the memories. For my father.
Mark Brandi is the award-winning author of Wimmera and The Rip. His third novel, The Others, is out now.
