Where I came from, country people had a wry and realistic view of death. They had to. As farmers and stock keepers, the cycle of birth and death was up close and personal in their every day lives.

Roast chicken for dinner? No supermarket down the street where it was easy to pick up a roast chicken – cooked or uncooked. The hungry farmer sought out the poorest layer in the flock and headed to the butcher block. Off with its head.

I came from a small and mostly rural Canadian province. Stories about birth and death were awash in myth and mystery. And, occasionally, ridiculousness.

As a television reporter in the 80s, me and my cameraman were assigned to investigate a tiny graveyard nearly an hour’s drive outside the booming metropolis of Fredericton (population: 44, 000+).

CBC TV had been invited by a local historian to investigate a smattering of bespoke headstones in a small local cemetery. We were met at the cemetery’s entrance by a local woman who looked clearly discomfited at the arrival of nosey city folk.

What we saw at first glance was a field of small, boxy headstones, mostly lopsided and irregular in shape. Upon closer inspection, we saw that someone had carefully spelled out the name and birthday and date of death of each deceased person. In twigs.

It was evident the maker wanted to remember the deceased and grant them the dignity of a grave marker. In a spirit of love and generosity, he – I am assuming it was a he – had made over three dozen headstones, each painstakingly crafted by hand.

He had laid out the names and vital statistics in twigs in a wooden box and then poured concrete into them. Alder was the wood he used, I imagine, as it was plentiful and its’ young branches were long, thin and pliable. Two problems: the grave marker maker was a dreadful speller and had little sense of proportion.

The twigs didn’t cooperate very much with his aesthetic efforts by staying fully in place. What should have been straight lines were a little wavy. When the deceased’s name was too long, the grave marker maker simply rounded the corner of the box and finished up the name down the side.

The end result looked a little less than professional. More like the work of an earnest kindergartner to be accurate. Grave markers to be sure that were filled with misspelled and misshapen names and dates. Lots of them.

We didn’t do a story that day. I sensed that while the historian had a professional distance from the comical stones, the local who took us to them was clearly uncomfortable. There is a fine line between poking fun at someone who is in on the joke and someone who has inadvertently attracted ridicule.

Years later, I heard all of the stones had been replaced by more staid and suitable granite headstones. With the names spelled right and lines as straight as arrows.

Still, it is poignant to think of the hours invested by some earnest and well-meaning member of the community to properly remember his kith and kin. We pick where we choose to invest our labor on this earth.

It is sweet and a little sad to think that, in spite of the odd and disastrous products he produced, this chap felt he was doing sacred homage with his labors.

Then and now, I felt a little sad that his work did not survive. It is said that it is the effort we should praise and not the outcome. I can’t help thinking that the poor man’s efforts might have lasted a little longer on this earth than they did. And remembered with kindness, not ridicule.