Permanence

After many weeks of artist's block, hand wringing, coordinating with the memorial folks and then just plain ol' waiting, Krissy's headstone is finally complete and residing over our plots. I must say, that even after drawing it out and seeing the comp images of the design, I wasn't quite prepared to see it cut forever into stone. It's fitting, and in its own way reminds me of Krissy. Like my beautiful wife, it stands out amongst the gray and black of the cemetary, you really can't miss it when you pull into our section. I always said you could never miss Krissy in a crowd, even at 5'. I'm very happy with the work that Spence Memorial did for us, they were extremely helpful every step of the way and put up with my constant badgering over email and inexperience with a design like this.

For those interested in the details, the stone is a blue pearl granite, imported from Asia, and really has to be seen in the sunlight to catch all the beautiful facets and colors it contains. I hand picked and hand drew everything for this, and I really couldn't see myself doing anything else for my wife. I truly wanted to give her an everlasting memorial, and adorned it with images from both our lives. The center design is a celtic knot I drew for her that ended up as a tattoo on her wrist. As with the phoenix, she assigned great meaning to this tattoo also, turning it upside down from my original drawing and discovering it was really a heart, with three points for the loves in her life, the girls and myself. I knew as soon as I decided to design the headstone that I would be using this as the centerpiece. The continuation of the border ends up in scroll work that I wanted to represent waves, of the ocean between us right now, but eventually they will meet and retreat together to somewhere new and wonderful. I'm not sure I pulled it off but as an overall design for the stone I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks. My only intention was to honor my wife and to create something unique as an everlasting memorial to her, to show my love and my heartbreak. I hope she likes it.

It's also strange just how permanent and final the stone makes everything feel. I told a friend the other day that now it feels like the final piece of putting her to rest is in place, and it's a strange feeling. I do feel better about visiting her at the cemetery now that it's there though. Something to focus on, something solid. I hope others can visit her now and feel a bit more at peace.