Baby Ryan

Bobby1981

In the interest of not being shady. I am the poster Sands1981. I made them two posts while all in my feelings then the next day, felt some type of way and left the site. I lost all courage.

I meant every word of them posts though. I suffer terrible from social anxiety. I say little because I just cannot articulate myself verbally, but I write a lot. I say so much when I write it down

Anyway, I came back because I do love this site, I been reading it for years and sometimes I would just like to be able to let it out and I can do that here.

Maybe After Hours is not the place but its the forum I read the most along with some others and I know that amongst all the pisstaking, there is good people here.

Anyway this post is about Baby Ryan.

Do any of you, when you go to a Grave belonging to someone belonging to you, ever leave flowers on a strangers grave?

My Dad was one of them men who went to England back in the day, Anyway, it did not work out well for him and he died young and violently. He was buried in a Paupers Grave. Beside him was another Paupers Grave....all this Grave said was Baby Ryan.

For years and years when myself and my brother and sister went to Dad's Grave, we always left flowers on Baby Ryan's Grave.

My Dad's Grave belonged to someone in his family and its only when someone belonging to them died that they put up a headstone....Myself and my brother and sister would always go and leave things there and letters and notes asking them to reach out to us and to stop taking the stuff we left on his Grave off it. They kept throwing our stuff aside. We understand there may be bitterness etc but it has nothing to do with us kids, so can you please stop throwing our tributes away.

Baby Ryan was also buried in a Paupers Grave. None of us, ever left without leaving flowers on his grave. I just came back from England and after over twenty years, Baby Ryan has a headstone.......His family are Irish. He is buried with my Dad in the 'Irish ' part of the cemetery. The family have put Shamrocks and a Celtic Cross on the headstone. Its beautiful too, but it seems strange seeing this baby's name on a proper stone after all this time. The plot obviously belonged to someone who did not decide to remember Baby Ryan until two more generations of their family died.


I grow plants named after certain children as a troubled child myself. I just have a few kids that I hold dear to my heart. Maybe I will tell you all about them some time. I am going to get a plant for Baby Ryan though. Just behind him, a young man we knew is buried. He got stabbed after coming out of a party.....If you are a Mother, his Grave would make you weep....His Mam goes every single day and its full of lights and candles and cards and all sorts of heartbroken Mam things.

So anyway, when I go this Graveyard now, I go to Dad, and then three other people who are like family from Tipp....then I go to Baby Ryan, and the young man who was stabbed and another woman that someone I know loved, no one goes to her grave.

Baby Ryan has a headstone after all these years. I wonder who he was. His family don't even know that my family have been leaving flowers for him for many many years.

Do you ever leave a flower for someone you dont know?

fizzypish

No not really. Graves are more for the living than the dead. I don't believe that the person is there/anywhere anymore. Nice sentiment though.

Winterlong

I remember searching for a family grave in a graveyard some years ago. Took hours. But when looking you come across some graves that are just terribly sad. Family tragedies. Entire families that are in the same plot and all died on the same day etc.
Graveyards are terribly morose places....I never feel better for having visited one.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graves are empty. The essence of a person is elsewhere.

Glenster

Alaya Large Applause wrote: »

Graves are empty. The essence of a person is elsewhere.

Agreed. the act of leaving flowers is for the benefit of the leaver not the deceased.

tomwaterford

Winterlong wrote: »

. Entire families that are in the same plot and all died on the same day etc.
Graveyards are terribly morose places....I never feel better for having visited one.

While slightly off topic...I find some things fasinating

I remember before while bringing the father to visit an old old family grave in a disused graveyard,seeing a person's headstone saying they died aged 104 in 1932.....imagine the changes they seen in their life

cbyrd

I don't even visit my dad's grave, that's not where he is. He's in his garden, in every shrub and flower he planted, he's on the end of the couch where he always sat. He's in my heart and I don't need a lump of granite to tell me when he went away.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

cbyrd wrote: »

I don't even visit my dad's grave, that's not where he is. He's in his garden, in every shrub and flower he planted, he's on the end of the couch where he always sat. He's in my heart and I don't need a lump of granite to tell me when he went away.

This has always been my philosophy, and that of my mother before me.

A Louth poet Jim Craven wrote:

Before the first shovelful
An Epitaph

All you thoughtful thousands, round my grave,
Hear this
I'm not away.
I shine in all your shaven faces,
Whisper through the mystery of trees.
Look! That crow carries me.

For years I drifted here and there -
Now, I'm feckin' everywhere.

Your Face

In answer to your question - yes I have.

Bobby1981

I cannot work out how to quote the posts individually that I want to ( can someone tell me how?)

So I just want to say to all who replied....Thank you.

I hope I get these next two posters right as I am going from memory ( seeing as I am posting on quote and multi quote etc and nothing is showing up..help me someone:-)

cybrd...I was 7 years old...there was no garden, no shrub or flower, no couch....just running to some place in the middle of the night because someone would be coming home drunk.......I only have two photos....only one shows his face from far away...so his resting place is where I feel He is sleeping and can hear me....you understand?

Srameen...I love poetry. I loved your poem. Thank you.

Your Face...I would love to hear why you did....if you would like to elaborate? If you don't thats ok, but I think its lovely that you remembered someone not belonging to you. It was unthinkable to me and mine to leave flowers on my Dad's Grave and see this little marker that no one ever visited with a Baby's name on it. Over the years, the little baby became entwined in my head with my Dad as they lay side by side.

Baby Ryan's Grave was old. If I was a Mother who lost a baby (and I think his Mam is long gone now) ...My heart would be soothed somewhat to think someone , somewhere remembered my little one and said a Prayer for them so they were not forgotten.

Thank you all.

Victor

Bobby1981 wrote: »

I cannot work out how to quote the posts individually that I want to ( can someone tell me how?)

Click the 'QUOTE' button on the right side of that post.

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Put the quote text here

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