One afternoon in May, 2008, at Old Calvary in Queens, I received an email from someone asking if I could photograph the burial site of the infant’s grave shown in this series of photos. In 2008 I received requests for such photos on a semi-regular basis. What made this inquiry unusual was that I received it while I was at the cemetery and, as it turned out, no more than 100 feet away from the burial site in question. Old Calvary is not the most enormous burial yard but it is big enough that to receive an inquiry about a burial site while basically standing right next to it is some kind of small miracle.
The inquiring individual had sent exact location coördinates, making it easy as pie for me to find the gravestone she was after. I promptly sent back photos from my cameraphone, promising higher-resolution photos later, after I got home, from the DSLR I had on me. I had no way of emailing photos directly from the cemetery via the DSLR.
Upon receipt of my higher-resolution photos the correspondent made one other request. She had called a florist across the street from Calvary, requesting flowers to be placed at the burial site. Could I please go back to Calvary and got photos of those flowers at the burial site?
If nothing else she simply wanted to know she got what she paid for with the monstrous bouquet she ordered.
That is what I did. Here are the flowers ordered by a woman whose connection to the 1-year old buried herewith I no longer remember. An aunt? A cousin? It was not the child’s mother from whom I heard.
Whatever her connection to this child the bouquet was magnificent. I went back out to Calvary somewhat skeptical the bouquet would really be there, while also asking why anyone would send me out in search of something like this when they stood to gain nothing from my time spent getting there and getting back.
As with the initial connection between this woman and me, these flowers looked like a miracle.
