Eldridge Cemetery, Burlington, Vermont

There are many symbols that represent the young in funerary art—the broken bud, the lamb, and shoes.  A pair of shoes, reminiscent of the baby shoes that so many parents have bronzed, represents the loss of a child.  Sometimes one of the shoes is on its side.

The shoes are a poignant image of a baby that conjures up memories of a lost child–those first faultering steps, the first steps to an adulthood that never comes.