Diamonds aren't the only stones that make you cry.

In my work with Eternal Care Stone Services, I've had the privilege of cleaning countless headstones, each one a unique piece of history. But every so often, a stone connects with you in a way that goes far beyond the work itself. I've heard the phrase, "diamonds aren't the only stones that make you cry," and recently, I experienced the truth of that firsthand.

​The stone in question belonged to my two-times great-grandmother, Alice Coddington.

​As I began the painstaking work of gently scrubbing away decades of moss and grime, a wave of thought and emotion washed over me. I looked at her dates and did some quick math in my head. I realized that Alice would have passed away when my grandfather, her grandson, was just nine years old. An electric jolt ran through me. Nine years old. That was the exact same age I was when my grandfather passed away. In that moment, a direct and powerful line connected my grief, my grandfather’s childhood, and Alice’s final days.

​My mind then turned to my grandfather’s namesake. My grandfather, John Maxwell "Jack" Coddington, was born in 1913. His grandfather, John H., had passed away in 1910, three years before Jack was born. It was another heartbreaking realization: my grandfather never had the chance to meet his own grandfather, the man whose name he carried. The generational connection was a name, but the personal connection was forever lost to time.

​But it was Alice's stone that truly moved me. As I worked, I couldn’t help but imagine her. I saw her holding my grandfather as an infant, the same way he later held me. I pictured her watching him play and grow up, and I felt in my heart that she would have taught him so many of the same life lessons that he, in turn, taught me. In that quiet cemetery, surrounded by the stones of my ancestors, I felt a deep, personal bond with a woman I never met.

​The tears came then, quietly and without warning. They weren't tears of sadness, but of a profound and unexpected connection. In that moment, the act of cleaning her headstone became a conversation across generations. It was a physical act of care, but it was a spiritual act of remembrance. I wasn't just restoring a piece of granite; I was honoring a legacy, bridging a gap in time, and feeling the love of a family that lives on, not just in my memory, but in the stories etched in stone.

​Angie Moore

Owner and Service Provider