Memento Mori: home to the botanical

As we strolled through Lund last Sunday, we walked by the cemetery which was adjacent (as they are wont to be) to the botanical garden where we were not supposed to go (not good enough). It was worth the visit, but this gorgeous piece of art along the way caught my eye, so I photographed it...what a wonderful thing to put on your tombstone!

Thanks to the computer age we live in, I found Monica's obituary on line: here it is (in Swedish)--but the translation (provided by Google) follows below the link:

https://www.sydsvenskan.se/2015-01-24/monica-walberg

Google translation of the Obituary:

1837/5000

Mona was born in Kisa as the youngest daughter of provincial counselor Nils Albert Hennings and his wife Hilde, born in Vienna. She went to school in Linköping and graduated there. With her Tomas, Mona, via Uppsala, came to Lund and graduated in 1966. At the Sydsvenska Gymnastikinstitut (SGI), which was located at Sandgatan 14, she started working in 1967.Mona was a deeply knowledgeable and clinically skilled physiotherapist with a special interest in orthopedic medicine, that is, diseases and problems from our organs, but she had a glance far beyond the usual for each patient's individual needs. She listened, answered and there was always a supplementary question. Physiotherapy is in many ways about motion education. The ability to convey this to the patient, Mona took part in her work with the students at the Department of Physiotherapy at Lund University. To continue as a clinician, Mona was the prerequisite for communicating what she wanted to the students and we were lucky when she swept down to us with news from the big world. That the students appreciated her, we know at least once a year, we celebrated that she received "Kotan", the student's prize for the best teacher. Despite a heavy workload at University, Mona followed when SGI 1997 moved to Bredgatan 5 and worked there until 2010.But Mona was so infinitely more than just a good colleague. Many of us are physiotherapists in Lund, like her, she had a really good friend, Mona meant a lot to many. She was interested in us, of our children and of our lives. Through her openness with the disease, she helped us all to slowly accept that her own time ran out. Around Mona lived everything and everything was beautiful, home to the botanical and summer of the Hellenic coast.Ylva Hedin Larsson, for the physiotherapists at Sydsvenska gymnastik institutet

Google Translate for Business:Translator ToolkitWebsite Translator

I think the matter above pretty much speaks for itself: The art on the tombstone alone tells me that Monica is someone I would have love to have known. The Obituary amplifies my interest.  I am a little distressed that she died only five years older than I am now (I better pack a lot in in the next five years! And start working on my tombstone artwork, perhaps?)...

But the phrase that caught me was this little cryptic, haunting quatrain.

Around Mona lived everything

and everything was beautiful

home to the botanical

and summer of the Hellenic coast.

Yes. Thanks to my stroll through Lund, and to the internet and (god forbid) Google (and thanks to the enduring enamel of art above all), I seem to have stumbled on someone I'd love to have known.