A Christmas Mourning Gift

On our first day's walk toward Montmartre, we passed over this bridge...

I loved the contrast between the aged patina of the bridge and the brightly-colored graffiti spray-painted all over it.

And when I looked through the bridge to see what was below...

I was surprised to see that the bridge didn't cross over a road or train tracks or a stream...

But over a cemetery.

A very old and moss-covered sort of a cemetery. I felt invited to check it out.

So the next day, on Christmas morning when much of our house was still asleep from Midnight Mass the night before, I set off with my camera to visit what I soon discovered to be the Cemetery of Montmartre.

The cemetery was organized by "streets"...

And I very quickly found myself lost amongst the many graves of the artists and citizens who were buried there....and completely absorbed by the sights around me.

At first, I found myself fascinated by the doors to all the family crypts...

I'm sure they were stunning when they were originally placed some 200-300 years ago.

But the artistic effect of time...

Had worked its magic and had given the entire place an ethereal, transcendent atmosphere.

Eventually, I moved beyond my infatuation with doorways and their metaphorical insinuations...

And started to step a little closer...

To peek through those doorways to see what was inside...

*sigh* A visual treat behind almost every one.

Over and over again, I peeked into doorways...

And found one magnificent work of art after another...hidden away.

It was captivating. And a bit addictive.

That was until I peeked through this rusty doorway...

And had this old girl stare back at me. She creeped me out a bit.

And so did this guy...

So I just moved on, albeit a little quickly.

It wasn't just the dead who resided here. There were many stray cats roaming about who seemed to own the place.

I don't think this guy liked me. His eyes looked just like the ones on that creepy girl a few pics up.

Below, you can see a black cat warming herself on a grave in the top middle of this photo.

Behind her, you can see how many of the graves had plants, flowers and small plaques on top of them.

I was particularly attracted to this pleasing fragment...

Which I believe says something like..."Was my Godmother"...?? Why this fragment? Who made it?

How I do love a mystery and this cemetery was full of them.

And the sculpture...

Oh my.

Unbelievable. The kind whose grace and beauty takes your breath away...

Like this young girl grieving atop the grave of Artist Gustave Guillaumet (1840-1887).

And this elegant statue of a somewhat sad, young girl standing on the grave of another French painter, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805)...

To my delight, I would find her again in the Louvre a few days later as the subject of one of Greuze's paintings, The Broken Jug...

Though she seems more innocent and less-sad than her graveyard twin sister.

During his lifetime, Greuze wanted to be recognized as a history painter but was labeled as a genre painter, often being criticized for his sentimental scenes from every day life.

Funny that.

Though I enjoy the great historical and moral paintings, I find myself drawn more intently to those depicting domestic and ordinary life.

Thanks to Greuze and his genre style we have these two wonderful portraits of young girls who knit:

The Wool Winder (c. 1759), owned by the Frick Museum in New York...

And La Tricoteuse Endormie or The Sleepy Knitter (c. 1759) in the Huntington Library and Gardens art collection in San Marino, CA...

But I digress, don't I? Let's get back to the graveyard...

So there I was, completely absorbed in the vast artistic wonders of the Cimétiere Montmartre...

When I noticed there are a great number of muffled sounds around me. And from many different sources. So soft that I hadn't noticed them before.

The swish-swish of a broom, the scrape of a rake, and the amiable murmur of hushed voices.

Tucked amongst the 300-year-old graves, there were lots and lots of newer ones.

Coming up from my reverie, I saw around me some of the Christmas decorations that had been absent from the doors, cars and streets of Paris...

And I remembered.

It was Christmas morning.

And there were many families who had come to the cemetery to tend the graves and share Christmas with their loved ones who had passed away.

I was drawn toward a little boy's voice who kept repeating "Regarde, Maman! Regarde!" Over and over again.

And I could hear his mother answer, a slight impatience creeping into her voice like happens when your child repeats the same thing over and over.

I kept walking toward his voice and finally found them. It appeared to be a grandmother, her daughter, and her grandson who was about 4 years old, all tending the grave of a grandfather who had passed away in 2009.

And the little boy was putting Christmas ornaments on the tree, though in the pic above, he is actually behind the tree.

Each time he placed one, he would turn and say, "Regarde, Maman." And each time the Mom would answer, affirming his placement in just the right spot.

As I walked by, they looked up. I smiled and wished them a Merry Christmas, feeling somewhat like an intruder on the intimate scene.

And then I noticed the rest of the families I hadn't "seen" before, honoring Christmas by visiting the graves of their loved ones.

Instantly, I forgot all about doorways and sculptures and dead artists.

My heart lurched, my eyes filled and I suddenly missed my Mother..my grandmother..my aunts, uncles, cousins and loved ones who had all left this earth before me.

I sat and remembered their gifts to me and silently wished them all a Merry Christmas too.

Then remembered that I needed to get "home" to my family. We had Christmas in Paris to discover...and that's a job most definitely left to the living.

Though I loved everything about Paris, I enjoyed that morning walk in the Cimétiere the most.

And now you know why.