Felix's Victorian Memorial Picnic

On Memorial Day Weekend 2019, we held a Victorian picnic at Felix's grave at Forefather's Burying Ground in Chelmsford, MA. It was also the unveiling of his grave marker.

 

 

The death head design on the grave marker was chosen because it was a design Felix was drawn to. There were many photos of different gravestones with death heads on them amongst his photos. The infinity symbol with a heart above was something Felix drew frequently. His favorite symbol was the infinity symbol, and the theme of love was recurrent in his art, writing, and musical choices.

 

 

 

We started the day with the picnic lunch. In attendance were me (his mom, Elizabeth Parise), siblings Frankie, Bekah, Lillian, Jack, and Luke; his grandparents David and Jill Brow; Auntie Sarah and her husband Marc; Felix's cousins Wesley and Elessar Brow-Hill; great aunt Bronwyn and great uncle Tom, and Bekah's longtime friend from Concord Sienna.



 

We then moved closer to the family burial plot for a reading of the following quote

 The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst his broken task, which none else can finish- a kind of indignity to so noble a soul, that it should depart out of nature before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is. But he, at least, is content. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world. Wherever there is beauty he will find a home.

                     Ralph Waldo Emerson
                     from his eulogy for Henry David Thoreau






We planted plants and wildflower seeds around Felix's gravestone and the family monument

 

 

Bekah then "treated" us to a haunting and irreverent kazoo solo that surely would have amused Felix for what seemed like hours.



Sarah gave us a tour highlighting some of our many ancestors in Forefather's Burying Ground starting with the Davis family plot where Felix is buried.