In Ecclesiastes 1:11, the Preacher laments that “there is no remembrance of former things.” Each generation will slide into oblivion and will soon be forgotten.
Many cultures have created rituals to counter this necro-amnesia. The best known is perhaps the Mexican Día de los Muertos, but others also have ceremonies to remember the dead. In Yoruba culture ancestors actively interact with the lives of the living; in Korean culture families set aside food on a special lacquer table on the anniversary of the death of a family member; in Jewish culture a candle is lit on the anniversary of the death of loved ones.
Modern life, though, has a way of watering down these rituals: Día de los Muertos can become merely a secular festival; Koreans, who used to remember up to five previous generations, now may only remember one or two.
The United States seems particularly resistant to honoring the dead. In our culture the closest we come is Memorial Day, which honors only one part of our population.
When my brother John died several years ago, followed in a few months by his wife, Karen, I felt the need to memorialize both of them. So, foolishly, with no practical knowledge and only a few tools, I broke ground for a memorial patio.
After watching some how-to videos, I dug a 10 foot by 6 foot, 8-inch deep rectangle in my backyard, then prepared the base with gravel and sand. I bought two colors of brick, red and gray. The bricks were engraved by Pechmann Memorials, a local company that has expertly helped me through several patio expansions.
The inscribed bricks for my brother and sister-in-law inspired other bricks. All have a story.
ALIDA 1918: My grandmother, Alida, bore an “Upstairs/Downstairs” child sired by a prominent Swedish politician. She left her child with her parents, immigrated to this country, and had a second family, which included my mother. Alida died, along with her baby daughter, in the 1918 flu epidemic.
UNCLE GUNNAR: Alida’s son, the one she left with her parents in Vimmerby, Sweden, was my uncle Gunnar. He migrated to Jamestown, New York, in the early 1930s. He is now reunited on the patio with his mother after over a century.
TILLIE: Tillie was a refugee from Ukraine in the early 20th century, and was also the maternal grandmother of my wife, Donna.
I expanded the concept to honor some of my favorite authors: the brick 1855 is the year of the first publication of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, E.D. is for Emily Dickinson (not erectile dysfunction), WALDEN is self-explanatory (I hope), and ISHMAEL is for the “call me” guy in Moby-Dick. The brick ONLY CONNECT is from E.M. Forster’s novel Howards End. It’s the dominant theme of the novel, and it serves as the dominant theme — the mortar, if you will— of the patio.
I added a few nostalgic childhood addresses. 627 is the street address on Franklin Street in Titusville, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. BRIGHTON PLACE is in Ocean City, New Jersey, where my family vacationed every summer in a house built by my grandfather and namesake, George Espie Savage, who was a prominent church architect.
Another brick reads UBI SUNT, Latin for “where are they,” a common theme on the mystery of mortality that dates back to the Middle Ages.
Finally I added two larger, more elaborate stones: a rose inspired by the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the Chinese character for dragon —for Donna, who taught tai chi for 35 years and had a school called Silver Dragon. And I added a stone Buddha, who reminds me of one of the central doctrines of Buddhism, impermanence. The patio embodies impermanence, too, as the mortar has already begun to erode.
My patio started as a memorial but grew into something beyond that, combining people, places and art that have given meaning to Donna and me.
It is a social space — perfect for morning coffee or an afternoon drink with friends. It is a place where the living can meet to reflect (not morbidly, I hope) on the dead. You don’t need a backyard to do it — my friend has created a secular shrine on her kitchen counter. The possibilities are numerous; the rewards substantial and unexpected.
The capstone of the patio is an engraved excerpt of a poem by Madison poet Marilyn Annucci, who wrote it while sitting on the patio.
Ubi Sunt—
Where are they?
A small Buddha is silent
A stone dragon does
what stone dragons do
among the names of the dead
among old wisdom, old stories
among the living
still
Sitting on the patio may lack the mystique of a 19th-century séance, but sometimes it can feel like a modern, secular approximation. Although I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits, when I sit on the patio, the bricks whisper to some part of me, a multitude of voices from the past.
George Savage retired a decade ago from UW-Whitewater, where he taught English. He is an ardent advocate for liberal education.
If you are interested in submitting an essay to Isthmus, please query lindaf@isthmus.com.
