Andrew Lumish owns a mobile cleaning service in Tampa, Florida. While that might not be that big of a deal, what he does with that service in his off time is. Lumish restores the tombstone’s of veterans to their former glory by painstakingly cleaning each one by hand. On days when most of us are taking it easy, he can be found doing what he feels he was called to do. Why does he do this?
“If you properly restore the monuments you can begin an entire conversation and potentially, in a figurative sense, bring that person back to life…If I could do this every day, I would.”
The Tampa Bay Times reported back in 2015 that he had already restored over 300 tombstones. As you can see from the photos below he does a heck of a job.
Some of these tombstones are unreadable, the elements have taken their toll on them so badly. But, that doesn’t deter Lumish who will spend as much time as he feels is necessary (anywhere from 20 minutes up to 2 hours per tombstone) to complete the job.
But, he doesn’t just clean the tombstones. Mr. Lumish actually researches many of them to learn about the person behind the monument. He then shares their story on his Facebook Page; The Good Cemetarian. CBS Sunday morning did a story on him last November, which we have included below.
H/T to Sarah Forsythe for making us aware of this man’s story.
