The Joy of Words

I confess. I love words. I love how they sound (most of them anyway). I love how you can string them together to communicate ideas. I love how playful that stringing together can be.

Consider the following epitaphs found on headstones in various parts of the English-speaking world. I'm not sure when or how I obtained these, so I can't give credit to the collector. I can't even vouch for their authenticity (although you can find them in various places on the Internet). I include them here just for fun and because the joy of the words stands in stark contrast to the fact that they were chiseled on the headstones of people who had only recently died--a somber occasion if ever there is one.

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:

Born 1903 - Died 1942

Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the

car was on the way down. It was.

In a London, England, cemetery:

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid

But died an old Mann.

Dec. 8, 1767

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:

Anna Wallace:

The children of Israel wanted bread,

And the Lord sent them manna.

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:

Here lies Johnny Yeast.

Pardon me

For not rising.

In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cemetery:

Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:

Here lays The Kid.

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger

But slow on the draw.

A lawyer's epitaph in England:

Sir John Strange.

Here lies an honest lawyer,

And that is Strange.

John Penny's epitaph in a Wimborne, England, cemetery:

Reader, if cash thou art

In want of any,

Dig 6 feet deep;

And thou wilt find a Penny.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:

On the 22nd of June,

Jonathan Fiddle

Went out of tune.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont:

Here lies the body of our Anna --

Done to death by a banana.

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket, Massachusetts:

Under the sod and under the trees,

Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.

He is not here, there's only the pod.

Pease shelled out and went to God.

In a cemetery in England:

Remember man, as you walk by,

As you are now, so once was I.

As I am now, you soon will be.

Prepare yourself and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent

Until I know which way you went

On a grave marker in Boot Hill, Tombstone, Arizona:

Here lies Lester Moore

One slug from a 44

No Les

No More

Somehow, the rhyming, the word play, the humor juxtaposed against the serious reality of death takes some of the sting out of what some consider our final destination.

Much like the Savior's resurrection did. Because of Him, "the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

 "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?


 ". . . Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:52-57).

I find it interesting that John referred to Jesus Christ as the Word (see John 1:1-4; D&C 93:8-11). Words have power. They can take the sting out of something as heart-wrenching as death. The Word has all power. He has for all time defeated death and injected joy into the living that takes place on both sides of that final mortal event.