Cold Cold Ground

This memorial to a baby who lived only six weeks can be found in the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia. If Mike had lived, he would be 36 now and possibly a father himself. I am sure his parents still think of their “petit lapin,” who in their memories will always be the tiny infant they held in their arms for such a sadly short time.

As a little girl of around eight in England, I began to collect epitaphs — admittedly an odd hobby for a child — and all these years later, I still find them interesting. The very old tombstones in English cemeteries tend to have verses. Some are moralistic, some macabre, and some affecting. But no memorial I’ve ever seen has moved me as much as the simplicity of those three words: “notre petit lapin.”

Words and image by Passante.