The Dead

It is a vonHedwig family tradition to picnic in a graveyard every autumn. As winter gains strength, frost kills, and wind rattles the leaves off the limbs, Death whispers in your ear. I AM HERE.

Of course, the Cold Man is always here, but he’s easier to ignore while the bee is on the flower. Since it is very much a vonHedwig tradition to face what threatens, we dress in our mourning finest and meet him where he lives. Or rather, doesn’t.

This year we accepted the gracious invitation of other like-minded souls, and joined Those Who Mourn at the lovely Rock Creek Cemetery for a picnic. The weather was unseasonably but enjoyably warm, and we explored, and made friends, and toasted those who have gone before.

Preparations, of course, included new hats. The twins, Annabelle and Mirabelle, trimmed their own.

Alice band

+ hot glue

+ ribbons

+ feathers

+ little black beads

over veil

= appropriate  and elegant new headgear

P. Phinneas, usually resplendent in a brown topper, had to find headgear to match his grandfather’s black frock coat. He settled on a grey wool slouch, fitted with an emergency tool stash. The Fearless Fabricator is never without the means of production!

My own topper only needed a bit of trimming to include a veil, and a Día de los Muertos touch.

The cemetery has been in use some 300 years, and has much to delight the senses. We picnicked by the lotus pond, whose brown stems and rattling seed pods reminded us – as I am now, so shall you be.

Chef had prepared a cold collation, which we presented buffet style on a suitably elegant tomb. Then, with apple cider and schloss, we toasted the dead.

We met many fascinating people, some again and some for the first, but I hope not the last, time. More photos can be found on the von Hedwig Flickr photostream.