It wasn't, of course. Instead it looked like an elegant solution to a problem: a cross had broken at the bottom, and was now supported by a wire frame that preserved the remnants of the original but kept the shape of the original. But thinking about it a bit more, I realized that wasn't the case.
What was holding up the cross was actually the wire frame on which the cross - a home-made grave marker - had been built.
The base of the cross had been broken off, or dissolved away from exposure to acid rain over the decades. How many decades? It was impossible to tell - just as it was impossible to tell for whom the cross was intended to serve as a memorial.
The cross has broken glass of several colors incorporated into it, or pressed onto the surface.
Perhaps eighty or ninety years ago someone died and was buried. Someone else cared enough to build a wire frame and pour a cross of concrete around it, carefully incorporating colorful bits of broken glass into it. Now, the cross is breaking down, the name of the person it honors lost to history, or buried in the annals of the Holy Trinity Cemetery. But for the moment it remains hanging on a wire frame above the surface of the cemetery, a testament to the love of the builder for the person buried here.
I love to visit old cemeteries when I'm out on the scooter because it's easier to get around than with the car, especially in the ones where the roads are very narrow. It's never without a prayer on my lips and the camera in hand that I visit a grave with a marker that's unusual in some way. Perhaps the soul whose spot it is in that hallowed ground needs to be remembered or could use a prayer or two. I hope you found your grandparents' site!
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