Four&Sons

Rest in peace

BY Stan Banos, October 15, 2012

Cemeteries by their very nature are somber, solemn affairs. Stimulus is minimum: a brief passage, the rare statuette, the newly arrived or withered assortment of flowers. Isolated from the noise and industry of the living, many find themselves in various states of disrepair, like the bodies they entomb.

That was my own world view, until I experienced my first pet cemetery. Here was a place both very much within and very far beyond the everyday conventions of its more mundane counterparts. Here was a place where lives were not just commemorated, but celebrated — a much more humane place, a much more human place. One is first struck by the significantly smaller size of the headstones, which if anything, tends to accentuate the experience. The most lilliputian of these I’ve yet witnessed was a three inch wonder forever immortalising Icky the Stickbug. The epitaths, some written with the latest inscription technology (others with felt tip markers), testify not only to the lifelong joys and inevitable sadness of pet ownership, but also to the humor. My favorite was to Penny — “She never knew she was a rabbit.”

Pet cemeteries have been around since the ancient Egyptians, and exist throughout the world to this day. The first in the United States was established in Hartsdale, just outside of New York City around the turn of the century (the previous one); Rin Tin Tin’s remains are buried alongside several lesser known canines in Paris. And although most pet cemeteries are privately owned and maintained, my personal favorite can be found right in the Presidio of San Francisco, nestled within the confines of large sheltering pine trees, surrounded by the proverbial white picket fence and sequestered under the on ramp to the Golden Gate Bridge. Forever in a state of shifting disrepair, some of its headstones have actually been known to wander about! Since many are made of wood, they can simply crack off at the base with age, only to find themselves unceremoniously resurrected in the nearest approximate or convenient place possible. The cemetery is haphazardly, if lovingly maintained by an intermittent cast of volunteers, and was initially created by a handful of devoted pet owners serving the military circa the late 1950’s. Somehow, it survives to this day, a humbled but resilient reminder of the complex bond between man and animal in this world, and the next.

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All photography by Stan Banos
reciprocity-failure.blogspot.com

Tags Black&White, Collection, Community, History, Personal, Pet Cementeries, Photography, Reportage, Society, Stan Banos