Ethel & Rhoda

Friends and I attended a conference down in the midlands some weeks back. We stopped off on each journey, calling at Ethel’s on the way down, and Rhoda’s the way back. Sadly, both ladies were away, and we could not speak in person.

Ethel’s place was the most impressive; indeed, it is something of a local attraction. Yet it is sad, so very sad. By a barely open door does she stand, slightly stooped though dignified, while melancholic and heart-broken. Ethel Preston’s statue was erected by her husband, Walter, in 1911. It eloquently bespeaks his grief and loss, and though the door left ajar might intimate a post-mortal existence, there is little evidence of hope. So sad does Ethel appear that the phrase “You’ve a face like Lawnswood Ethel” was soon heard around Leeds, to describe a person’s glum expression. A beautiful grave, but one seemingly bereft of hope; a tragic salute to Adam’s Fall, and Death’s cruel stalking of his many children.

Rhoda Johnstone died in 1905, and her gravestone is plain, only warranting our attention because someone decided to read its inscription:

She went gradually down the valley toward the river with all the golden richness of a setting sun in summer, a sinner redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, full of peace and joy, with an unspeakable desire to see the KING in all His beauty. She spake of Him.

No statue, no dramatic sculpting. Going ‘down the valley’ might indicate a long, drawn-out illness, painful and undignified. Yet there is more hope proclaimed from this gravestone than I have heard preached from several pulpits. Both women died, both were sorely missed, both left legacies of grief and loss. Yet one had a real and certain hope, the other, seemingly not.

What of you?