On pets and cemeteries

Just read a story about a library in Ohio that found a pretty important work of art in its collection. It's a statue by Edmonia Lewis, the impressive 19th century sculptor. The piece, called the "Veiled Bride of Spring" was "lost" for a century due to fact that it had shifted owners and by the time it hit the reading rooms, nobody knew what it was all about. But the thing that hit me between the eyes was the sentence about her masterpiece, "The Death of Cleopatra".

"Cleopatra"," the report said, "shared a similar past. Also considered lost for nearly a century, it was serving as a horse's tombstone at the time of its recovery."

Now I've spent a lot of time in cemeteries hunting down memorial art and just last month hung out in Paris' Pet Cemetery, Le Cimetière des chiens d'Asnières-sur-Seine. I thought it would be a change from the staid tombs of Parisians known and unknown and I expected a lot.

It wasn't terribly impressive, but as I squatted before a cat's grave with an Egyptian motif, I got to thinking about how this particular plot of land differs from the biggies to the north and east.

The tombstones were, for the most part, pretty simple with the names and dates and a few heartfelt verses carved on them. "Minouchette, ma cherie. Toujour amour" or some such. One of them, a golden retriever's last bark, held a globe filled with ragged tennis balls in it, obviously detritus of a canine life well-lived. Brought the tears to my eyes, I can tell you. A double grave for some kind of terriers (many of these graves had pix of the inhabitants) was a tiny topiary forest.

"No one has to bury their pet," I thought. "Every pooch and every cat here has someone who really loved them. Paris passed a law in 1898 saying you couldn't throw your pet into the trash and had to bury it 3 feet under, and things were ready to roll. But still, these animals could have been cremated. Their owners didn't have to pay the death tariff. They were, in short, were well-loved. One of the gravestones reads, "Fidèle compagne et seule amie de ma vie errante et desolée" or "Faithful companion and only friend of my wandering, desolate life." Now that's enough to make you throw yourself on the grave and water it with your tears...