Joe Mathews, Zcalo Public Square Published 12:35 p.m. PT Nov. 20, 2020

If youre having a hard time processing the scale of death produced by the COVID-19 pandemic,heres a California alternative for wrapping your mind around the carnage:

Visit the largest, prettiestcemeteryyou can find. Irecommendthe original Forest Lawn, in Glendale, the most Californian of cemeteries.

I recentlywalked the290acresof this memorial park, the first of six Forest Lawn parks in Southern California,and found that itclarified my thinkingandimproved my mood.

Italso helped me to putin perspectivethe full human toll of COVID-19. Since Forest Lawn openedhere114 years ago, in 1906, it has interred 340,000 souls on this property.Under current projections, theU.S.willreach340,000 COVID deaths in January.

If youre looking for global perspective, try Colma, the Bay Areas city of cemeteries, the final resting place for 1.5 million people; the world should surpass 1.5 million COVID deaths before Christmas.

Such statistics are tragic andreflect a fundamental human failure: Weexperienceindividualdeath intensely(be it a friends death or the killing of George Floyd), but struggle to recognize death inthe aggregate.Thismyopia is whywe need cemeteries right now.

Cemeteries are not just a place to reflect on the past,wrotelongtimeForest Lawn chief executive John Llewelyn, inA Cemetery Should Be Forever. They remind us to keep the present in perspective.

Especially when the present is so frightening.

Forest Lawns missionwasabout putting a sunny California spin on death.

I believe in a happy eternal life, Forest Lawns first real leader Hubert Eaton wrote in 1917. I therefore know the cemeteries of today are wrong, because they depict an end, not a beginning I shall try to build at Forest Lawn a Great Park filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture with interiors full of light and color, and redolent of the worlds best history and romances.

The resulting memorial-park has beencritiquedasaDisneyland of Death. But at thismoment, I found visiting the happiest cemetery onEarthsoothing, and thought-provoking.

I encountered joggers, bikers, painters, and babies in strollers.Iheard birds sing as I enjoyed360-degree L.A.views from the esplanade.A half-dozen people chatted amiably while admiringThe Mystery of Life,asculpture groupof18 human figuresgathered atstream that flows toward an unknown destination.

By its usual standards, Forest Lawn was pretty quiet.Itsart museum which housesan important collection ofstained glassand William Bouguereaus 1881 paintingSong of the Angels was closed.Therewere noschool field trips on the grounds. Tens of thousands of people, including Ronald Reagan, have been marriedat Forest Lawn, but during my visit there werenoweddings in the cemeterys three churches, which were locked.

Still,I enjoyed the way the place resemblesSouthern California in miniature, with itsvariedtopographies(windswept hills, cool valleys, a sprawling basin),andobsession with being big (Forest Lawnswrought-iron gates aretwice as wideas those at Buckingham Palace, and the Hall of Crucifixion houses the worlds largestpermanently mountedreligious painting).

In an older, flatter cemetery sectionIwalked amidstthe century-old graves of people who died in their 20s of Spanish flu.In theCourt of Freedom,I admired agiant outdoorreproduction ofof John Trumbulls Signing of the Declaration of Independenceand reflected on Jeffersonswisdom in putting life before liberty and pursuit of happiness.

This pandemic is killing so fast that were not stopping to appreciate the lives lost.Wewillneed to rememberthe plagueslessons, to honor its sacrifices, so we might see its afterlife as a beginning, not an end.

Here in California,we shouldmemorializeevery last one of our pandemicdead,witha monument that isbeautiful and big, and makes people happy when they visit it.

Joe Mathews(Photo: Courtesy)

Joe Mathews,joe@zocalopublicsquare.org, writes the Connecting California column forZcalo Public Square.

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Connecting California: Finding solace during COVID-19 at 'the happiest cemetery on Earth' - VC Star