Note: Although written during Memorial Day weekend, this column is less about public commemoration than personal reflection – shaped by visits to two very different cemeteries; one historic and world-famous, the other intimate and deeply familial.
Sometimes the overlooked graves, obscured with ivy and weeds, are the most interesting. These were my thoughts as I wandered through Père Lachaise Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world, attracting some 3.5 million visitors each year.
I came here a month ago as much for its parklike atmosphere and towering old-growth trees as for its famous graves. My quest was to pay homage to Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, who was buried here in 1971 at the age of 27. His remains rest in what is still the cemetery’s most visited grave.
Finding it, however, is no simple task in such a vast and winding place. But the journey itself is part of the pleasure, with each turn revealing another variation on the cemetery’s timeless themes of memory, art, and decay. Having neglected to pick up a map, I relied instead on a more informal method of navigation: waiting until I heard an American speak. It did not take long. Soon I was pointed in the right direction, though the route still seemed to require a mathematical genius – which I most certainly am not – to navigate its labyrinthine paths.
Père Lachaise Cemetery is organized into 97 numbered divisions spread across 110 acres of hilly, cobblestoned terrain. Designed in the style of an English landscape garden, it is a place of winding, tree-lined avenues, hidden corners and elaborate mausoleums. Traditional graves, family tombs and a central columbarium are woven into a carefully planned layout that somehow still feels delightfully labyrinthine to the wandering visitor.
Père Lachaise stood as the inaugural grand garden necropolis, serving as the definitive archetype for the landscaped burial grounds that emerged across the Western world in the 1800s. During the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, the state assumed authority over interments, championing the revolutionary concept that every individual – irrespective of their faith or rank in society – was entitled to a respectable final rest within a setting of profound beauty.
Initially, local residents were hesitant to seek interment so distant from the city center in soil not sanctified by the church. This changed through a strategic effort to relocate the remains of luminaries like Molière and Jean de La Fontaine, along with creating a tomb for Abelard and Héloïse (look them up as theirs is an interesting story) – rapidly establishing the site as a fashionable destination. While its first year saw a mere 13 burials, that figure surged to nearly 30,000 in a quarter-century; ultimately, the cemetery became the resting place for more than a million souls.
Many visitors arrive with maps in hand, navigating directly to the graves of notable figures buried there. To name but a few: Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Bizet, Chopin, Olivia de Havilland, Modigliani, Edith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Richard Wright; not to mention scientists, philosophers, and historical figures as well as ordinary people. In fact, my daughter and son-in-law recently attended a memorial service there. So, though it does still take burials, only if you lived or died in Paris, there is a waiting list as burial sites are few and far between. Still, I noticed workers excavating a new one during my visit.
The cemetery rewards a less structured approach to exploring. Much like The Louvre, it is impossible to absorb everything in a single visit. Beyond a handful of celebrated sites, some of the most memorable discoveries come from simply wandering its cobblestone avenues and encountering overlooked corners, weathered monuments and unexpected scenes along the way.
Here you will find a range of architecture, where the ancient and the modern often stand side by side. As I maneuvered its pathways – what with the up and down and cobblestones it can be dicey – I found myself wondering about the many tombs that resemble small telephone booths or miniature chapels. Were they designed simply as monuments, or as places where grieving visitors could briefly step inside for privacy and reflection?
Some graves appear polished and almost new, while others are so weathered by time that the names have nearly disappeared beneath moss and lichen. Fresh bouquets sit beside faded flowers long past their prime, along with plastic arrangements and hardy miniature evergreens meant to withstand the seasons.
Without the shade of the old trees and the softer greenery woven throughout the grounds, the cemetery might feel almost gothic – a landscape crowded with stone monuments, statues and crosses that at times evoke the atmosphere of a Dracula novel. At one point, a black crow passed me on the path, giving me a momentary start.
The juxtaposition of old and new has a great vibe. After passing a row of Victorian-era tombs suddenly I was struck with a fully modern one. The grave belongs to still-living French photographer Andre Chabot and bears a camera on its frontispiece. After some research I found that he has photographed 700 cemeteries and has more than 195,000 images of them! His tomb has a large camera facing out and there is even a QR code on the outside that takes you to a link about the creations he has in the cemetery. Talk about personalizing your future resting place!
As I wandered in search of Morrison’s grave, I happened upon the shiny granite slab that marks the remains of the author Colette. What a coincidence that I was reading one of her books (My Mother’s House) on this vacation. I eventually found the singer’s grave, marked by a cornucopia of flowers, candles, photographs and personal notes – not to mention a maraca. By far, it is the cemetery’s most colorful resting place, transformed daily by the offerings of devoted fans. It’s impossible to not feel the spirits somehow in this cemetery at rest with bird song, beautiful sunshine and greenery, and closing them here for eternity. Like many older cemeteries, Père Lachaise Cemetery has evolved into an unexpected urban refuge for wildlife. Improved environmental practices have helped create a surprisingly rich ecosystem, where orchids and cyclamen grow among the graves and foxes, tawny owls and dozens of bird species now thrive.
From the grand scale of Père Lachaise Cemetery, my thoughts shifted closer to home and to a far more personal landscape: the family plots at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Uxbridge, Mass. Over the weekend, accompanied by my parents, I returned to the graves of relatives I had not visited in several years. The visit became less about history in the grand sense and more about family memory – a quiet reconnection with my father’s side of the family. We walked the hilly grounds together, me trying to record locations for posterity while my parents recalled names, dates and stories attached to each stone. Some belonged to relatives I never knew, including my great-great-grandparents and “Coica,” who died when I was only a year old, yet who somehow continues to live on through stories told by my father.
Not only does my father remember our own relatives, he seems to be familiar with many who rest here. As we walked, he recounted stories about families, local characters and former mill owners whose elaborate mausoleums still dominate parts of the cemetery. “This cemetery looks like something out of a Hollywood movie,” I remarked while taking in the sloping entrance lined with mature trees. “It was,” my mother quickly replied. The cemetery served as the opening funeral scene in Oliver’s Story, the sequel to Love Story.
Our hour-long visit became more than a walk through a cemetery; it unfolded as a tour through my father’s memories of Uxbridge itself. Along the way came stories of where my parents attended prom, roads where local boys once rode their bicycles, rivers where my father hunted and fished, remnants of old mills and the country road where my great-grandfather farmed and owned land. In many ways, the landscape and the memories seemed inseparable.
There is much to be said about places like cemeteries. We often overlook them, even though they surround us everywhere. Yet the feeling they evoke is difficult to fully describe – a quiet sense of peace, reflection and, ultimately, contentment. In many ways, a cemetery serves as a reflection of society itself, revealing how we remember, honor and remain connected to those who came before us.
“The boundaries that divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.” – Edgar Allen Poe.
The Seaside Gardener
By Laura McLean