Rotterdam graveyards

	On 21 July 1999 I visited two graveyards in Crooswijk. . Must do this more often, it really puts you with your feet on the ground. And the atmosphere is calm and serene. This terrace is part of the Catholic graveyard. There's a large, serious angel with a trumpet above their gate, I really like him and I always greet him (her?) when I drive by on my bicycle. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when ...
	The Catholics have demolished their beautiful chapel on the 14th of June. It seems the foundations were beyond repair. I had hoped to explore and climb it one day, I even received e-mail from the US inquiring about the climbing possibilities of this building. Now I only could take a picture of the ruins. Still some of the old graves were interesting enough to photograph.
	The Tuite-family probably has been forgotten. No flowers, a neglected grave. But nature itself has taken pity on them and an elder bush has sprouted where the flowers should be. Jozina Maria Tuite = Opperman - 17 May 1862 - 25 January 1945 Gerrit Tuite - 12 May 1863 - 18 May 1945 The graveyard is relatively unguarded and strollers like me go unnoticed. This is a big difference from the Jewish graveyard in Kralingen. They have a watchman. I was there on a cold winters day and asked if I could take a look. "Yes you can, as long as you keep your cap on." Ofcourse, I realized, their traditions are exactly the opposite of ours.
	Strange, these faces that look at you from their graves. Who was this young man? And how did he die? I couldn't discover anything about him from the old gravestone. No names, no dates. The roughness of his face and his clothes look like a farmer's. 1910-1920? Probably our own graves will be just as deserted and just as enigmatic, 80 years after our demise: Because the wise man, like the fool, will not be remembered for very long. Because in the days to come, both will already have been forgotten. (Ecclsiastes 2:16 ) For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything; they have no further reward and even the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
	The non-religious graveyard is much larger, better maintained and less romantic. The secular graves use more kitsch. Especially gravestones in the shape of a heart are in vogue. Terrible. When I die I want a nice cross with the text "et expecto resurrectionem" on it. The chapel in the middle looks like a romantic villa. Nice, but locked and not suitable for adventuring. The west entrance of the graveyard has a beautiful locked gate with pillars and a mini-chapel with a cupola. I have to explore that in more detail some other time.

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