Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah Georgia: Part FIVE

This is the last of my series on the beautiful headstones and nature park

that is

Bonaventure Cemetery

in

Savannah, Georgia.

If you ever get the chance to go there, I recommend it.

It is a nature walk, an art museum

and a place to reflect on life and death.

It is especially poignant to me as I write this blogpost today

because I lost two friends to death, very unexpectantly a few weeks ago.

One was a man who I worked with for years and he died of an unexpected massive heart attack

when visiting downstate to pack up his daughter and her belongings from college..he was only 58.

One was my 63 yr. old girlfriend who was very, very active in organizing art shows

in our area, and she possessed a spirit that cannot be squelched...she died of a totally unexpected

massive aneurysm.  She was cremated, but if I could, I would get her a headstone like one of these beautiful ones I have shown you in these past posts.

Treasure life..it is so precious.

Treasure friends and family..they are irreplaceable.

Quite the monument:

This ENORMOUS archway/headstone sat right on the river waters!:

The carved detail in it was undescribable!:

Jesus statue on the arch:

Amongst all the grandeur and huge, decorated headstones

was this simple grave:

And this HEARTBREAKING one, the loss of TWO babies:

A sad, sad angel:

I loved, loved the Spanish moss growing on

this headstone:

Rose carvings:

Gorgeous:

Many family plots had ornate, wonderful gates and fences around them:

Like the gates into heaven!

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Part ONE: Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia

It may sound dark and depressing (if not a bit strange) to say that part of my trip to Savannah

this time was explicitly to see Bonaventure Cemetery.

But when you see the art there, combined with the gorgeous Spanish-moss draping

the ancient, huge oak trees, you will begin to understand.

It was actually another blogger who tipped me off to tell me to look into going there

when I mentioned I loved cemeteries in general, and that I was planning a trip to Savannah.

So join me today in seeing WHY I am so, so glad I did visit this amazing place.

To me, it was like a beautiful park full of nature and art.

There were SO many beautiful headstones, carved in granite and marble...they were gorgeous.

I especially loved the ones with angels on them:

You'd think you were in an art museum, rather than a cemetery:

Look at the detail in her wings:

There were many life-sized (or bigger) statues for headstones.

We learned that many of the statues were commissioned art pieces and were made to look exactly like the deceased person.  This is a man's headstone, so it isn't the case...but in future blogposts I will show you some:

Statues, carved stone embellishments and oak trees with Spanish moss. Wow:

Look at her angelic face:

Just amazing, detailed, architectural wonders here:

Another gorgeous angel. Can you see the sorrow in her face?:

It was a huge, huge cemetery...all sitting in the midst of sky high majestic moss-lined trees.

We hadn't even seen the oldest headstones yet.

We got there late in the afternoon (due to rain earlier in the day)...

and we only had time to see PART of this wondrous place.

More blogposts will be posted soon of the headstones and beauty here.

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