Conant CreekNeither of us knew the name of the cemetery nor the exact location, but we decided to try to find it. After a short search, we found it off of Old Hog Hallow Road. The road to the cemetery had long been plowed under, and the cemetery itself, sits on top of a hill, surrounded by plowed under grain fields, overlooking the valley. The cemetery turned out to be Farnum Cemetery with only a handful of gravestones dating from 1906 - 1950’s and looks to not have been maintained for many years.
One message on a gravestone caught our eye. It was from a woman born in 1842 and died in the early 1900’s.
Remember me
as you pass by.
As you are now
so once was I.
As I am now
so you may be.
Prepare for death
and follow me.
This saying was a common poem placed of grave stones throughout the old west. It is a sober reminder of
Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
I also thought it was interesting that all of the other times I have seen this poem on grave stones it has read “As I am now so you must (or shall) be” rather than “As I am now so you may be“. I can’t help but wonder if this change is a reference to…
1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Either way it is a timely reminder of eternity and the reality that we must all face.
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