Have you ever thought about what you will be remembered for after you pass away? I am fascinated by tombstones. (Yes, this is another one of my strange quirks.) These days, tombstones tend to be kind of boring with just the dates of birth and death. However, if you go to old cemeteries and read the tombstones, you will often find tombstones that tell you about the person’s life.
Sometimes people are remembered for their brave military service. Others are remembered for being loving husbands/wives or fathers/mothers. I recently found one that contained what I would like engraved on my tombstone. I have posted a picture of it. However, in case you cannot read it, here is what it says:
She went about doing good and set at liberty them that are bruised.
What an amazing way to be remembered!
I found this tombstone at Monticello in the same small cemetery where Thomas Jefferson is buried. This is the inscription on the tombstone for Agnes Dillon Randolph. I don’t know a thing about her other than that she was born in 1875, died in 1930, and has some sort of connection to Thomas Jefferson. However, that inscription tells me that she was my kind of lady!
One reason I am fascinated by old tombstones is that you are forced to condense an entire lifetime into a few words. Oh, to be remembered for setting at liberty those that are bruised!
Photo credit: Faith Allen
Blooming Lotus 
A quote I love is that life is what is lived during the dash between the dates on your tombstone.
When I was a kid and our family would go on vacation we would always stop by cemeteries to read the tomb stones. Some of them were pretty funny, others sad. The one you posted is damn good.
i think you qualify for that saying on your tombstone. may it not be for a while though.
I like tombstones too, especially the ones with some kind of story. I was at a graveyard the other day and read one about a union activist who died during an important strike, and I took a moment and sent his spirit some thanks for helping make the workplace better for people.
SDW
On my headstone I would like my favourite poem, by James K Baxter, a New Zealand poet now deceased.
It is called High Country Weather and reads as follows :
Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow mountain shine.
Along the upland road
Ride easy, stranger:
Surrender to the sky
Your heart of anger.
What a great post. I would want mine to read: “Lover of God and touched hearts with love and compassion.”
I’m not sure what mine would say, but I would like it to say:
“Lived and loved fully, noticed beauty”
Good post!
Here’s some info on Agnes, I, too, like the saying engraved on her stone:
Agnes Dillon Randolph
1875-1930
Virginia Hospital Training School for Nurses,
Richmond, Virginia, 1898
* Charter member of the Virginia State Association of Nurses (now Virginia Nurses Association)
* Organized the Tuberculosis Bureau of the Virginia Department of Health
* Twice President of the Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia (now Virginia Nurses Association)
* Spearheaded the development of the Sick Benefit Fund for Nurses and the Catawba Nurses Cottage for nurses with tuberculosis
Agnes Dillon Randolph, a life-long political activist, worked for passage of the act to require registration of nurses. She was instrumental in getting later amendments to the Nurse Practice Act passed including one in 1918 to provide Licensed Attendants to meet the need resulting from the service of registered nurses in the military during World War I. Randolph led the GNAV committee that raised funds to establish the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Chair of Nursing at the University of Virginia. Using her political influence to advance important health issues, she was the driving force behind the legislation that secured funding to establish statewide tuberculosis sanitariums and clinics. Randolph assisted with the establishment of Piedmont Sanitarium for African Americans, the first of its kind in the United States.
“She was the best lobbyist, male or female, that this generation has seen on Shockoe Hill.”
Douglas Southall Freeman Richmond News Leader, 1934
http://www.library.vcu.edu/tml/speccoll/vnfame/randolph.html