the hyphen in between
On lessons learned in graveyards.
I have always found graveyards fascinating. Ancient ones in the shadows of churches, where headstones lean crooked and weather-beaten, the eyes of limestone angels worn to sunken hollows, faces to the clouds. The names, etched in serif, blotted by lichen.
I imagine the ghosts of those who stood around the gravepit as the coffin was lowered, now returned to dust themselves and lying somewhere else. These people, once loved and in love, moments of rage and joy, forgotten in three generations, and now just a name.
If you’d asked me five years ago where I wanted to be in my career, I’d have said Managing Director. I’d have said I wanted Chief in my title one day. I’d have said a corner office, a weighty payslip, an assistant to pass me forms for signature as I stride down corridors.
But things change. A period of time in a particularly toxic firm ground away at my mental health, eroding my happiness and replacing it with dread which unfurled within me each Sunday morning, black smoky fingers wisping ominously through my gut.
In 2024 I got married; went on my honeymoon; was thinking about work whilst face-down during a couple’s massage, or lying on the beach. Already dreading going back.
Later that year I turned 40; two weeks’ holiday by the seaside left me refreshed, invigorated. Work remained a poisonous place but as I drove into the office on the Monday I had renewed energy. I would see this through; I am not a quitter. By Tuesday evening my wife told me I seemed miserable. The next day I quit.
Now, I work in consultancy. I get paid simply for donating my knowledge and experience. I have taken a pay cut; but I am busy, doing work I enjoy and am good at, and when I go on holiday I leave my work phone in the drawer at home. Most of all, my happiness is back.
Here lies. We glean facts from the fading letters carved into granite and limestone: a name, a birth date, a death date, and a hyphen in between which symbolises a life lived.
But the words also tell us how that person made others feel. Loving mother. Cherished father. Deeply missed. In loving memory.
What headstones never tell us: how much money the person had. What their job was. How far they rose up the career ladder.