The Penguins of Highgate Cemetery
I enjoy cemeteries. I lived behind one for most of my childhood, looking out from my bedroom window onto tombstones dating to the late-19th century. I still remember some of the names. Sometimes I’d wave at the stones when I returned from school; sometimes I forgot about them for weeks. My friends and I used to take shortcuts through the cemetery to get to the creek or the nearby neighborhood, and we had zero concern about who we were stepping on. We were never scared. We never took the place seriously, nor spiritually.
Cemeteries always seemed to me more a monument to the living than to the dead. I suppose I fall under the school of thought that the dead haven’t any use for a slab of stone and the scent of earth above them. They don’t need their photograph laser-cut into marble, they don’t need an open-armed angel looking down on them. Cynical as it sounds, I doubt they even need the burning candles that I always fear will topple over and set the grass alight. All of those things are the attempts of those left behind: to remember, to show respect, to grieve, to keep hold. It’s civilized ritual, and I don’t think there is any confusion who it’s for.
But there are a few aspects of cemeteries that I love. There are few areas where one can as easily see the passage of time on objects. Weathered stone is something I find quite beautiful, especially stone whose etchings are nearly faded:
I also find fascinating the idea of a final message. On some headstones it seems apparent that the deceased’s family made the decision (i.e., “Beloved Mother,” “Devoted Father and Husband,” “Fell asleep aged 71”). But others seem to indicate the deceased had a preparative hand in their final spot, like that of British artist Patrick Caulfield:
Finally, I always wonder about the lengths people will go to hold on to the memories of their loved ones. The graves with fresh bouquets on them always strike me as particularly interesting. Gone, but not forgotten. Dead, but alive in our hearts. Departed, but forever with us. Is the person merely paying their respects, or is it that they are unable to let go? I obviously know nothing about the story behind the deceased and can’t say anything factual, but I enjoy thinking about what would have been going through their loved one’s mind as they set the flowers down. I wonder about what’s there.
I recently visited Highgate Cemetery in London. Unlike Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris — whose notable names include Oscar Wilde, Frédéric Chopin, and Jim Morrison — Highgate is a little less of a tourist attraction. I’ve been to Père Lachaise several times. I love the architecture, the way the shadows fall through the trees, the tchotchkes around the celebrities’ graves. I love that people kiss Oscar Wilde’s grave, giving him the love that he was so cruelly stripped of during his life. I love the paraphernalia around Morrison’s burial site. Every time I go, I see something new.
Similarly, I wanted to visit Highgate because I heard that George Eliot was buried there. I read Middlemarch for the first time recently and wanted to see what type of headstone and sculpture she or her conspirators might have chosen for her. Also in the cemetery are Karl Marx (who has two headstones, one cracked original and one for tourists), Malcom McLaren, and the daughter of Gustav Mahler.
So I took the train up to Islington, strolled through Waterlow Park, and meandered around the cemetery. (Founded in 1839, by the way. For reference, Père Lachaise was founded in 1804.)
It took me a little while to realize that Highgate Cemetery is compact, and the map is deceiving. It took me around six minutes to walk from end to end, including stopping at various graves. But I took it as a blessing; I’d have more time to explore the graves and headstones in detail. It didn’t take me long to find all the celebrities (at least the ones I’m familiar with):
I loved the simplicity of Douglas Adams’ headstone. I think I would want one (dare I say, exactly) like this. Simple, to the point, and sweet in its unsentimentality. I left a pencil at his grave. George Eliot’s headstone was as elegant as I expected it to be. And when it comes to Karl Marx, I much prefer the shattered original to the ostentatious replacement. The new Karl Marx grave was funded by the Marx Memorial Fund, set up by the Communist Party in 1955.
I made the rounds a second time and then began to walk out. It was already past midday and I wanted to see one other London sight before my legs began to riot. I walked back down the main thoroughfare, glancing at some of the headstones I’d neglected to pay attention to in my first two laps around. There were some lovely quotes, some nice pieces of sculpture, and some very cool names (Hercules Bellville, 1939–2009. Sounds like a British superhero).
Near the cemetery’s edge, right next to Douglas Adams’ grave, I found this one:
Several things happened here. I stopped to take a closer look and smiled. Out of the thousands of headstones in the cemetery, and indeed all the cemeteries I’ve visited, this was the first one I’d seen for a gay male couple. I noticed the extra space awaiting the S at the end of PARTNER. I noticed the penguins, who mate for life and who are occasionally used as a symbol of the gay community. (There was a book a few years ago about a gay male penguin couple who raise a child, And Tango Makes Three. Also, the Philadelphia LGBT center was often called Penguin Place.)
In this case, the penguins also represent, I believe, the symbol of Penguin Books, a British publishing house. But the fact that there are two, rather than the one used by the publishing house on their book covers, make the mating for life symbol seem much more prominent.
I smiled. I thought to myself that this couple must have loved each other very much, loved books very much. I also appreciated the fact that Partners is one word. It felt much more elegant on a headstone than Husband and Wife. A single word for two people seems much more unified. And I’m a gay man, so of course it made me happy to know there are gay people buried in the cemetery.
I pictured Jim and his partner enjoying their cups of coffee together, bickering over supper, laughing, traveling, struggling to make it through the day or to keep the relationship going. I pictured them old and gray together, partners for life, sitting on the couch reading their Penguin books, having lived through all sorts of ups and downs in civil rights and mere civility.
I took a picture, stood for a while with that smile still on my face. Then I went around to the side of the stone and saw this:
Jim Stanford Horn died six years ago, when he was thirty-four years old. Two years older than me.
I couldn’t move for a moment. Then I made my way over to the bench across from it, sat down, and wept. I believe that is the first time I’ve ever used the word wept to describe myself, and the first time I’ve used it non-sardonically. I suppose, fortunately for me, that a cemetery would be one of the only public places in England where weeping is an acceptable practice. Still, I put on my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the other passersby.
I wept for Jim’s partner.
I don’t know his story. Maybe he is older than Jim and comforted by the fact that he’ll join him sooner rather than later. Or perhaps he is devastated because he never thought that his younger friend would depart before him, because he no longer has the comfort of knowing he’d never have to spend a day on the earth without Jim being somewhere too.
Maybe he is younger than Jim, and they were going to spend their whole lives together reading Penguin books, mated for life.
I didn’t weep for Jim. As you might have guessed, I don’t feel much sorrow for the dead. It makes for an easier life for me. But I wondered what sort of cruel gust took his and his partner’s plans and cast them out. Illness, accident, crime, suicide. I don’t know if there are any other options. It must have been one of the four.
Perhaps it wasn’t so cruel. Perhaps Jim had troubles in his life and was thankful for the respite he could not have in the waking world. Perhaps he was in pain of some sort and a stop to it was the best that could have happened. Perhaps it was random, and he was simply on a street corner, an airplane, in a car or house or theater, and at whatever moment on 28th October, for whatever reason, that was when his heart stopped. Fatalism at work.
I can’t help but feel, in my cynical way, a bit silly that I was brought to cry by someone I don’t know and never will, that I was touched by a story whose facts I know not one, a story whose branches I’d concocted on the spot, and only in my mind.
I always thought I wanted to be cremated, have someone spread my ashes in a place with beautiful water because I love swimming and I love the sound of splashes. But I wonder now if I might want to be interred somewhere, on the off, off chance that a young gay man, or anyone really, might be touched by the story that a simple piece of etched stone can reveal.
I lit and left a white candle by Jim’s grave, just in case his partner might stop by and know that someone else was wishing him — Jim’s partner — well. Maybe the candle will help distinguish it further from the other gravestones, (though I think it is the most unique stone in the cemetery) and onlookers will stop to take a moment to reflect.
After I left the cemetery I felt a moment of levity, a lifting that I didn’t know I was in need of. I thought it unfair that the dead can’t tell their stories, can’t provide all the facts to us after they’ve gone. Surely that lack of clarity has led to many a misunderstanding, a sadness, a gulf wide and unbridgeable. We spend so much time nowadays cultivating the story we want to tell: our digital presence, our possessions, our friends and family and the people we associate with, our homes, places of worship, places of leisure, the jobs we take on, the mantras we live by, the kindnesses we give, the kindnesses we fail to give, the moments we make definitive, the moments we forget, the times we reflect, forgive, betray, absolve, sabotage, redeem, hold on, let go.
Unfortunately, none of those things are available on a headstone. The only thing left is the name. The penguins. The partner with the missing S. The date on the side of the stone. We’re left to figure out the rest. I’m sure even Jim’s friends and family have much to figure out, to make peace with, to piece together. I wonder if it’s better that way, if the factual story we leave behind isn’t as important as the story that the living choose to remember. That’s the only story that will last. Our possessions will be destroyed, the facts of our lives will be lost. Whatever remains is what people manage to piece together, factual or not.
We’ve been able to piece together the entire history of the earth from a few fragments of soil, a small sample of bones, drawings in caves, telescopes that can see millions of miles away. Is it exactly as it happened? Do we have all of the facts? I wager not. There are countless stories about how all of this managed to happen. Some of them are used to quell and comfort, some are used as a launchpad for war, some are used to entertain and inspire. None are exactly true, exactly factual. But we all keep telling them to ourselves because somewhere, deep in all the versions, is something true.
So I’ve hypothesized about Jim Stanford Horn, tried to present all possible theories to myself, to piece together a story that makes sense to me, however sad or unfortunate it sounds. And it has given me comfort. Even though I will never know him, he still afforded me an experience I won’t forget. Whether I get the facts of his life or not, I’ll think of him as October 28th approaches. I’ll think of his partner, who will, after while, be added to the book with him. And I’ll wish them the best.
