After all this time ♥

I find it interesting to visit cemeteries for the sake of architectural beauty of tombstones and the poetic beauty of their engravings. The best place in Kandy for both these metrics is the Mahaiyawa Cemetery which is filled with tombstones of different cultures, eras, sizes, material etc. But this post is not about the Mahaiyawa Cemetery but a lesser known one.

Kandy war cemetery is located in "Deveni Rajasinghe Mawatha" which most of you will not know by its name so let me drop a pin.  This is the burial ground for British military personnel who died mainly in World War 2 (These are not only british but Sri Lankans, Indians, Canadians, East Africans etc) and one person who dies in World War 1. The following (links-02) are the links for information about the cemetery (the objective of this article is not to educate you about the cemeteries whereabouts.)


I first visited this place 11th of March 2016. Bellow are a few photographs from the visit. As you will see this graveyard has a uniform style for tombstones and a well planned architecture for the whole place. (as expected out of military maintenance.)

And this was the tombstone of D.H.Groves who died at the age of 27 in 1942.

And there was a wooden cross places near the tombstone, which read:

In loving memory of Dennis.

Still missing you after all this time.

~ Your sister Stella.

If Dennis was 27 years old in 1942 he would have been 101 years old by 2016. Assuming an age gap of not more than 10 years, Stella would have been 91 years by the time she visited this grave to place the cross.

A 91 year old British woman fying over 8000km s to Sri Lanka to visit her brother's grave even after 74 years and claiming to "still miss him after all this time" is worth blogging about  :-)

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Note: I am aware of other rational explanations such as

1. Their whole family lives in SL since colonial era. This even explains how he died in action in SL.

2. Since this cemetery is maintained by Commonwealth Graves Commission she could have just handed over the cross to their office in UK.

Still, let us go with my version.

link-01: Pin
https://goo.gl/maps/6f51ZaUhHqr

links-02
https://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/2009501/KANDY%20WAR%20CEMETERY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandy_War_Cemetery
http://www.lankalibrary.com/geo/warcemeteries.htm

link-03: Dennis Groves

https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2111845/groves,-dennis-harry/