On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
I believe, but am not certain, that this touching post is a first submission from Argiope. It’s a testament to love and loss, to honor and sacrifice, to joy and celebration of life. I am so glad you shared this with us. ~WaterGirl
Argiope
Last March, a year after we lost our mom, my sister and I sojourned to Paris carrying a bag of her ashes. Our mom loved travel and spent several happy days of her life on earth in Paris, so we decided to leave our families behind to take a sisters’ trip and do some clandestine scattering. It may be strange to spend any time focused on death in a city where so many of us go to celebrate life, but this time it made sense to linger in a few spots commemorating those who have gone before.
As a travel tip for the adventurous, I can’t say enough about the rental Velib bikes that are scattered throughout the city. Due to newly erected Jersey barriers and some changed traffic patterns, I came somewhat close to becoming one of Paris’s dearly departed, but other than that, it was a blast to get around on two wheels.
Pere LaChaise is one of the largest green spaces in Paris, and is a great place to stroll on a beautiful early spring day. It’s gigantic, with streets and alleys bisecting through sepulchers and monuments and mausoleums of various sizes. We caught this beautiful tree in early bloom, giving the place quite a cheerful atmosphere.
For some reason, this monument reminded me of a tardis, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was bigger on the inside.
Many famous people are buried in Pere LaChaise. Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas, Jim Morrison, Chopin and Moliere. Yet this was the grave that affected me most. Suzon Garrigues was barely 21 when she died at Bataclan nightclub in 2015. Her photo is on her grave, as is the round inscription. Where to start reading it? You decide. Either way, it’s haunting.
People buy pre-made bouquets from this little flower shop to take to the cemetery. At the end of the rue are the walls of Pere LaChaise.
This bronze monument to the students killed in the Resistance is in a lightly traveled part of the Luxembourg gardens. We stumbled on it quite by chance. Erected in 1956 by the students of Paris, it was made to commemorate their predecessors killed trying to liberate France during the occupation.
Just across from Notre Dame, there is small park with a lovely view of the cathedral. At least, there was before the fire. In this park there is a monument to the Jewish children of the 5th arrondisement who were deported to Auschwitz and died there. It includes just 13 names of children who attended a preschool nearby, a small sample of the hundreds who shared their fate, but knowing these specific names and ages makes the reality hit home with greater force. The inscription includes the reminder: As you pass, read their names. Your memory is their only monument.
The Book of Trump: Chapter Three
Auntie Anne
These are very moving . . . Thank you for the beautiful pictures.
arrieve
I love Pere Lachaise — probably my favorite cemetery in the world. How can you not adore the resting place of both Abelard and Heloise and Jim Morrison?
There go two miscreants
I found your final two quite affecting. We enjoyed an afternoon in Pere Lachaise, but it seemed so over-the-top; I think your ash-scattering is much more sensible.
MazeDancer
Lovely photos. And story.
randy khan
A couple of years ago, my wife and i chanced on another Holocaust monument in the northern part of Paris – larger than that one, but with all the names and ages of the Jewish people taken from that part of the city. The names and ages really tugged at your heart. I wonder if there was some effort to have those kinds of monuments throughout the city.
Wag
Lovely. Time is fleeting…
Yutsano
Every time I see any Holocaust memorial my gut just sinks.
Benw
Lovely and intense images from an adventure. Read their names. I think your mom would’ve been proud of you and your sister
opiejeanne
Thank you for sharing these lovely and striking photos with us because we didn’t make it to Pere la Chaisse either time we visited Paris. We had plans to visit this past Spring which were dashed because of Covid-19. Maybe, before we are too old, we will again visit Paris.
J R in WV
Kinda heart rending. I think I would handle the bones of the catacombs easier.
But beautiful as well. Flowers and inscriptions, ashes, ashes, all fall down.
My mom died years before my dad died, and he kept her ashes in a little box on the nightstand by his bed in WV. He died in Houston, and I brought his ashes home to WV.
The next summer we had a picnic in a state park the family loved, and then drove in the dusk down to a waterfall they loved.
Ashes, ashes; all fall down. Jerry Garcia. Others too, lots of people use that little phrase.
Barbara
Thanks for sharing such poignant memories and lovely pictures.
SiubhanDuinne
These are beautiful and touching pictures. What a lovely way to share your mother with others.
donatellonerd
Thank you for a lovely presentations. in my neighborhood (the 3rd, 4th, and 10th arrondissements, which were largely immigrant neighborhoods in the 30s & 40s), there are small memorials next to the doors with the names and age of every student in that school deported & killed. including my daughter’s maternelle (preschool) and elementary school. It was a well-organized (probably city-wide but this is where Jews lived) campaign, with dedication ceremonies, and survivors talking at the schools …
Mary G
Haunting, but in a good way, thank you.
Dorothy A. Winsor
We love Pere LaChaise. We first went to Paris 49 years ago and each time we go back, I see more and more memorials to the Holocaust. It’s like it took time for people to be able to acknowledge and find some way to mark what happened.
Phoenix_Rising
Speaking as her sister, whose life has not permitted regular visits to this den of iniquity lately, I can support the endorsement of the rented bikes.
I will add this: one of the moments that emphasized how far apart our lives were when our ages were between 15 and 35 was that my sister didn’t know why so many monuments to a place called ‘Dien Bien Phu’ were scattered across Pete Lachaise. We learned so many different things during those years! It was a deeply rewarding journey.