The last goodbye: finding the perfect headstone

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/25/a-stone-of-ones-own

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“Finally, I could sit and have a cup of tea with her,” says Harriet Frazer, recalling her first visit to the grave of her stepdaughter, Sophie Behrens, after her memorial headstone had been set in place. “We had always loved going for a cup of tea, a chat.”

Sophie killed herself, aged 26, in 1985. The night before, Harriet – who had brought Sophie and her twin sister up since their mother’s death when the girls were five – had enjoyed a “really good conversation” on the phone with her. She was starting a new job. She seemed happy.

The shock of Sophie’s death, the inevitable guilt felt by those left behind after her suicide, were overwhelming. “I felt that I had failed her,” says Harriet. As the blur of the funeral and the early months passed, she felt a pressing need to create something tangible, beautiful and permanent for her stepdaughter – a memorial to mark her grave in Norfolk that would truly say something about her.

“I wanted the stone to get it right, to celebrate the extraordinary person she was. Instead of bringing one bunch of daffodils she would bring me 12. She was such fun. I was very lucky.”

The memorial was to be about Sophie’s life, rather than her untimely death. The quest to realise this tribute proved unexpectedly difficult. Finding a craftsman and designing a stone that did not fall foul of the church’s rather rigid criteria took three years.

Ultimately Harriet’s search led her to found Memorials by Artists, an organisation to help other bereaved families commission unique pieces of commemorative art and navigate cemetery rules.

Memorials by Artists is part of the Lettering and Commemorative Arts Trust, which also provides letter-carving workshops and apprenticeships and runs a gallery, where an exhibition currently showcases the work of one of its original craftsmen, Michael Renton.

The idea that her experience might benefit other people came to Harriet two days before Sophie’s memorial was finally erected in 1988. “I knew there must be so many others who wanted something beautiful. I liked the idea of helping the bereaved as well as artists and the clergy to wend their way along the route.”

Several months after Sophie died, the family contacted a sculptor friend. Together they designed a memorial that focused on their nine years living in Italy – “an idyllic time in many ways” – when Sophie and her sister were young.

“We just assumed we could have whatever we wanted. The design was amazing, a sort of little grotto. I thought, out of politeness really, that we should show the vicar. He just said no, and gave us the rules.”

The regulations for churchyard headstones in England – ultimately at the discretion of the incumbent vicar – seemed to Harriet “not to allow for any individuality and to be put so insensitively”.

The experience was crushing. For a while, seeing no way to reconcile a memorial that seemed relevant for a young and unique life with the church’s requirements, Harriet gave up.

Then anger spurred her back into action and she took to the Yellow Pages. “I searched all over the country under memorial craftsmen. I would describe what we wanted and they would send a catalogue, advising I consider model E52 or something.”

Two years after Sophie’s death, and still with no appropriate memorial, friends directed Harriet to a wonderful headstone they had seen. A woman in their village had taken in washing in the 50s. Her memorial was carved with a simple washing line. Harriet was immediately charmed and wrote to its creator, the sculptor Simon Verity.

“I sat in his kitchen drinking coffee and it just felt totally right. The sense of relief was huge. I knew Sophie would have loved it.”

In the corner of the Verity’s workshop was a memorial to the poet John Betjeman that he was working on. “We talked about Sophie and he started sketching.”

By now the family’s wishes had crystallised. “The Italy years had meant so much to Sophie. The girls saw frescoes, magical places. They had coffee and cakes in a little room above the village shop. We had olives, a vineyard.”

Sophie’s stone features the dove of peace with its olive branch, two ripe bunches of grapes – “also because, later, she loved wine” – and a small, subtly carved background of rolling hills and cypress trees.

Below Sophie’s name, and above the dates of her life, is the inscription “writer”. As an adult, Sophie was a published writer; as a child, she was invariably to be found pen in hand. “The word said so much about her and it came to us very quickly.”

The family selected four lines from one of Sophie’s poems to be inscribed on the back of the stone. But the vicar would not allow anything other than “well-known verse”, and neither would he allow any carving on the rear.

Accepting these restrictions – for the time being at least – the stone was completed and put in place a year after Harriet first met Verity. “It was an extraordinary moment. I felt, ‘Yes, this really does celebrate her,’” says Harriet.

Since she began helping other bereaved families, Harriet has seen many others find similar solace. “It is somewhere you can go and where other people can recognise something of who that person was. It can be a joyful thing. People tell us in their letters years later how important that can be.”

One of Harriet’s correspondents said it was when he touched his partner’s headstone that he finally understood its significance. “It was warm, and it felt good.”

Some bereaved parents are disappointed not to feel instantly emotionally engaged with their children’s memorials. One wrote to Harriet, two years after the placement of his son’s stone, to report that it was the holding of a small party beside it – the dedication of a privately printed book of short stories – that had finally afforded him the sense of connection he so craved.

“When I go back to Sophie’s stone, sometimes I feel things and sometimes I don’t. When one wants to, sometimes one can’t. Planting bulbs, reading letters Sophie wrote or hearing a piece of music can bring the emotions flooding back – that is such a relief.”

Memorials by Artists was founded before the internet. One day early on, she received 41 letters requesting their booklet of guidance and craftsmen. Now most enquiries come through the website.

There are wider options for those seeking something other than a headstone in a churchyard or cemetery, but the need to remember remains instinctive, Harriet thinks.

For many families the cost of a bespoke memorial, carved by a craftsman, is prohibitive. Harriet estimates it could be twice that of a standard design for a simple stone. She believes passionately, though, that everyone should be supported in their desire for something personal and fitting.

People often tell Harriet that the headstone is so important to them because it is the last thing they can do for their loved one. “You can go on doing things though. You can plant flowers or simply remember.”

Memorials need not be made of stone. The father who wrote of the graveside book dedication called them small acts of love. Harriet suggests to people that they keep a little off-cut of the stone or a beautiful pebble.

In May she will retire, which will allow her to return more often to Sophie’s stone. She has enjoyed seeing it weather over the years, but believes it is now due to be cleaned – “but not scrubbed pristine” – and she will try again to have Sophie’s poem inscribed on the back.

That would, she thinks, make Sophie’s memorial complete.

“When it was first placed, someone told me they had seen her stone and wondered who she was. That for us was so important.”

• For more details about Memorials by Artists and its publications, see memorialsbyartists.co.uk. The exhibition of work by Michael Renton is at the Lettering Arts Centre, Snape Maltings, Suffolk until 28 June, letteringartstrust.org.uk