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The River of Life
Quietly weaving through the headstones of the Congregation B’nai Israel Cemetery, a swath of blue grass known as The River of Life serves as a route for contemplation, resolution and beauty.
Designed by Donna Lilborn ASLA and incorporating sculpture by Charles Swanson, the journey begins in the youngest section of plots and weaves through the graveyard like a blue silk ribbon. The blue path peacefully snakes along until it concludes amidst the oldest tombstones in the B’nai Israel cemetery. Festuca Glauca, an unusual species of blue grass, sets the course apart from the common green grass that makes up the rest of the grounds. Over two football fields in length and only occupying fifty unused plots, The River of Life serves as a thoughtful walking path, and as a metaphor for the journey of life.
Donna Lilborn, a landscape architect, designed the path and the additional surroundings to be a beautiful and interactive environment for contemplation and resolution. Lilborn explains, “I see this project as a way of making the cemetery a place for people who are visiting to have a positive experience, which maybe they aren’t even noticing.” And she achieves this by subtly blending the schemas of the cemetery into the balance of purpose and beauty in her design. Using headstones as inspiration, all of her additions incorporate clean lines and granite colors so as not to clash with their surroundings—a point proven by her choice of handwashing sink designed by sculptor Charles Swanson. The basin is distinctly memorable because of its beautiful simplicity, but when not being admired, it’s curved, smooth muted surface calmly blends back into the background of headstones.
 Spaced intermittently along the way are smooth curved benches strategically placed beneath Japanese Maples, Shadblow, and a few weeping trees that in time will grow to be wide and beautiful canopies, perfect to sit and contemplate under. Lilborn muses, “You wouldn’t think people would want weeping trees in a cemetery, but people actually like the cleansing feelings that weeping trees give them.”
Located around the grounds at irregular intervals are larger trees such as Pin Oak and Honey Locust. Flanking each gate are two American Elms, one of which is planted on top of the congregation’s genizah, or final resting place for worn out religious texts, making it the only occupied grave affected by the installation. “That Elm did the best, perhaps because of all the organic material beneath it, but the congregation members like to comment on its holiness too,” says Lilborn.
Near the cemetery’s exit stands a handwashing sink, so graceful in its simplicity that its role in an ancient Jewish tradition is befitting. The form of the sink’s basin is a tall and slender sculpture named Misu. Designed by sculptor Charles Swanson, the Misu is a cast stone basin with a foot-pedal operated faucet. The elegant copper faucet stems from the ground and angles decisively down toward the round bowl of the basin, delivering an ample pour. After visiting a cemetery, it is often customary for Jewish families to wash their hands, and this tasteful sink replaced the old hose spigots that were previously used to supply water for this tradition of ablution.
Over a century ago, the local Jewish community started laying their loved ones to rest in the B’nai Israel Cemetery, at a time when landscaping design was considered an unnecessary luxury for such a small congregation. A hundred years later, when an anonymous benefactor made cemetery beautification efforts possible, the congregation formed a committee to ensure the new design respectably fit within their tastes, traditions and beliefs.
After a unanimous vote by the congregation committee for her design proposal, Lilborn was approached by one of the members. “Donna, that’s some great design! I've been a member of this congregation for decades, and I think I've been on every committee there is, and I know I have never seen a unanimous vote on anything!"
Lilborn won over the committee by recognizing “cemeteries are for the living,” and accommodating this fact into her design. A common theme running through her work in this project is that a cemetery should be beautiful, meaningful and a commemoration to life.
Photos courtesy of Donna Lilborn
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